


Institute of the Talented

by JiminJoyStick



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, College, Comedy, Fantasy, Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-10 17:04:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 44,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6996964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JiminJoyStick/pseuds/JiminJoyStick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where superpowers are hidden, Wonwoo is recruitted to join an institute for being "talented". In this story, we follow Wonwoo's perspective of him living life while attending a school for students with superpowers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to comment along with the story :)

“Congratulations! You graduated high school! How do you feel, son?” My mother held a giant pink frosted cake that spelled out ‘Happy Birthday’ across the top. The room was decorated with party accessories that made our tiny apartment seem even smaller.

“Eomma, you didn’t have to go all out for me. I just graduated high school; no big deal.” I looked into my mother’s tired eyes and set the cake down on whatever space we had left on the table. “You shouldn’t spend so much on me.”

“Nonsense! This is very proud moment for me and if could’ve, I would have spent a thousand dollars on you!”

“I love you, Eomma.” I wrapped my arms around her tiny and frail body.

We both sat at the table and devoured the entire ‘birthday’ cake while I told her about my senior year. Her proud eyes never left mine and her smile never faded. After a while of talking and enjoying ourselves, I saw that the time was getting late and I sent my mother to bed.

I’m not a bad person, if that’s what you’re thinking. In fact, I am very proud of how I was raised. I sent my mother to bed because she wakes up early to go to work and doesn’t get back until nighttime. You see, we don’t have a large source of income. My father disappeared when I was just a child and ever since then it had been just my mother and I.

After allowing my mother to fall asleep, I went out to get some coffee. My senior year practically included a million tons of free coffee. The coffee shop around my house knows about our financial situation and gives me free coffee. I don’t know the exact reasoning for it, but I know my mother had something to do with it.

“Jeon Wonwoo?” A lady’s voice came from behind. I turned around to the girl in a stunning black dress. Her body was extremely well rounded and her hair complimented her dress very well.

“Y-Yes?” I stuttered.

“I’m Vi Nguyen, principal of the ‘Institute of the Talented’. What would you say if I invited you to attend my school?” she took out a card and passed it to me.

“I’d say that I didn’t have any money and that I needed to find a job instead of continuing my education any further.” I sipped my coffee.

“I looked at your grades and I think we can arrange a full-ride scholarship.” She insisted.

“Now I know that you’re lying. My highs school experience was full of B’s and C’s. As wonderful of a person I am, I am not incredibly smart.” I tossed the card into the trash and walked outside. _I have no idea what that was about._

“STOP HIM! HE TOOK MY PURSE!” Vi Nguyen shouted behind me. I turned around and saw a man coming my way.

I’m guessing this is the part where you think I go all superhero and save the day. You’re wrong. Why don’t you be patient? I don’t even I know I have powers until tomorrow! Oops, spoiler alert. My apologies.

The man ran past me and I attempted to grab his shoulder but I missed and slipped on the air underneath me. _I’m honestly incredibly lame._ Instinctively, my head shot upwards toward the man and I watched him trip on a vine that was grown out from the sidewalk.

“Oh, thank you, Wonwoo! I knew you could do it; you are talented.” Vi Nguyen said and picked up her purse, kicking the man in the head as she walked away.

I stood up and called the police. When I turned around, the man who stole the purse was gone. The only thing that remained was the random piece of vine he tripped over.

Instead of waiting for the police to arrive, I went home and fell asleep.

In the morning, I stepped out of my bedroom with cow-licked hair and made my way to the kitchen.

“Good morning, Wonwoo. Ms. Nguyen was just telling me about the amazing offer she gave you.” My mother said, making me spin around and see Vi Nguyen sitting at the table next to my mother. Quickly, I attempted to fix my disaster-of-an-excuse hair.

“No need to prepare yourself for my unannounced arrival. At our institute, it’s completely normal to see students like this.” She smiled and took a sip out of her coffee. _I hope my mother didn’t prepare that._

“Ms. Nguyen, how grateful I am for your visit. If I may ask: why?” I sat across the table from them.

“Don’t be rude, mister!” my mother hollered and threw a piece of bread at me.

“It’s quite alright, Ms. Kim. I came here today, to inform your mother of the great opportunity I presented to you last night. You are, indeed, very talented and would fit in perfectly with the students.”

“In what way am I ‘very talented’? I already told you that my grades are complete garbage.” I crossed my arms and my mother gave me a stern look.

“You, Jeon Wonwoo, have the ability to summon nature at will.” She said.

The entire room went silent. My mother looked at Ms. Nguyen like a mad woman. I don’t blame her, this lady is crazy! To finally break the silence, my mother finally giggled.

“No, seriously. How is my child talented? It’s his looks, right? My child looks just like his father did, very good looking and tall!”

“I’m serious. Remember last night, when that man took my purse? Do you honestly believe he fell out of nowhere?” she smiled as if she thought she proved her point.

“I fell out of nowhere.” I replied.

“That- That is true.. But that vine! That species of vines doesn’t even grow here! Oh—would you please just attend my school?! It’s free and full of students with similar abilities!” she took out a business card that looked nothing like the one she threw at me last night. The new one had a picture of a guy wearing a cape and shooting rays of fire out of his eyes.

“You expect me to believe that you run a school full of students with magic powers?”

“You must keep it a secret, even if you don’t end up attending. It’s a very sensitive topic, as you can see. If the outside world was to find out about us, they might panic and threaten to kill us.” Her eyes widened and looked around the room to see if anybody was watching.

“Hmm, yeah. I’m going to stop you there. My mother was supposed to be at work by now. Yet, here she sits listening to your stories. If you will excuse us, we all need to leave.” I stood up and pushed her through the door leaving me and my mother alone.

“I’m sorry about that woman; she must’ve followed me home last night when I went to get coffee.” I helped my mother stand up.

“My love, I think she might have some truth to her story.” She walked to grab her purse. “But I can’t explain right now. Like you said, I have to get to work and I also need to think about how to say this.” She left before I could ask any questions.

I spent the day sitting at home, waiting for my mother to arrive. What does she mean ‘she might have some truth to her story’? _That couldn’t be true; she looked at Ms. Nguyen in such a way that would never make me believe there was truth._ I looked over at the windowsill and saw the withering flowers. _Summon nature at will, eh?_ I stared at the flowers, expecting something amazing to happen. Sadly, I was disappointed. After a few more hours of waiting, my mother finally returned.

“I’m here, I’m here! Now, let me explain!” she threw her stuff down and sat next to me. “It all started with your father. When we were getting married, he told me he had the ability to move rocks with his mind. I thought he was crazy! A few years after you were born, he disappeared but he left a note.” She stood up and ran to her room. She came back with a tiny piece of paper. “Look, here!”

_I’m sorry that I can’t explain the events that are taking place. I just need you to trust me. Remember what I told you at our wedding? Well, it’s true. I can do that. To protect our family, I must go into hiding. Please, forgive me. When the time is right, I will reveal myself. Until then, I love you, Kim Miyoung_

“I hated your father for this, but I still loved him. I’m such a weird woman!” she giggled and looked at the piece of paper in sadness.

“You’re a lovely person. Forget him, we don’t need him.” I hugged her.

“Don’t say such things about your father! Look, it says he will return! He must have an ability like Ms. Nguyen said! Wonwoo, you have to attend the school.” She picked up the card the lady gave us earlier and dialed the number on it. “Hello? Is this Ms. Nguyen?”

“Eomma! What are you doing? Hang up the phone!!!” I reached to grab the phone but she started crawling around the room. “Eomma! You’re going to hurt yourself!”

“I’m calling to accept your offer from this morning—WONWOO STOP CHASING ME I AM ON THE PHONE!” She kicked me in my face. “Oh, no. Now is a great time to talk!”

“SHE’S KIDDING! SHE DOESN’T WANT ME TO GO! SHE ISN’T EVEN MY MOTHER!” I tried to get her off the phone.

“Silly, Wonwoo!—Ms. Nguyen, when does school start?” my mother’s foot was holding my face back. She extended her arm to grab a piece of paper and a pen. She wrote some information on it that I couldn’t see from the angle I was standing at. “Okay, thank you!” she hung up the phone.

“Eomma, why would you do that?” I cried.

“Jeon Wonwoo! You are not a baby; do not complain in my presence or in anybody’s presence! You are going to this school!” she put her foot down and sat on the couch.

“You’re supposed to be a highly over-worked ahjumma, how can you kick your son in the face like that? When do I start school?” I sat on the couch next to her.

“Tomorrow is freshman orientation. It’s a three day orientation so make sure you bring a change of underwear! I’m going to bed” she made her way to her room.

“What? Tomorrow?! What do you mean three days? What could possibly take so long?”


	2. Chapter 2

“Welcome to freshman orientation! Most importantly: Welcome to the Institute of the Talented!” Ms. Nguyen spoke at the front of the auditorium.

The auditorium was quite large. The ceiling looked like it could fit a T-Rex in it. About half of the seats were filled. Future students looked around confidently at one another. It almost seemed like it was a competition.

“Only a few of you will be selected to attend our school. The rest of you, well, you’ll go under the radar for a few years. To start us off, allow me to introduce myself and my companion here. I am Vi Nguyen, your principal of this fine establishment. My name may sound a bit odd to you all, that is because I am Vietnamese. With me, I have Professor Jimin Suarez.” Applause engulfed the room.

“Thank you, Thank you. First of all, let me just say that I’m not Korean. Though, that’s probably a given. I am Puerto Rican! Anyways, for a few of you, I will be your professor! My class is really fun so don’t worry too much!” The white-skinned Puerto Rican said.

A few people in the audience looked around in confusion. I was most definitely among the confused ones. Such strange teachers they have at this school. Though, I assume it’s that way to match of their weird curriculum.

“WHEN ARE WE GOING TO SHOW OFF OUR POWERS?” A kid screamed and everybody looked at him.

“Well, since you asked.” Professor Suarez said and looked directly at the kid. For a split second, there was complete silence followed by the kid screaming and gasping for air. “Would anybody else like to interrupt?” The auditorium shut up. “Thank you, to start things off. Allow me to introduce a sophomore that was a freshman like some of you will be. S.coups, please introduce yourself.”

“Sup, I’m S.coups. Call me scoops, I guess. I won’t show you my power because they told me not to, but I can tell you my power.” The sophomore spoke.

“No—No! I told you to show them your power, not tell them!” Ms. Nguyen whispered a little loud. “Remember the plan.”

“Oh, right. Fellow students: Welcome to the Institute of the Talented! Those of you, whom are worthy, please stand up.” His voice filled the auditorium. Strangely, his voice was appealing. Before I knew it, I was standing up, along with about thirty other students. “Those of you whom didn’t stand up, you may go home. Your presence is no longer needed here.” About fifty students stood up and walked out without a word. _This is so strange, why is everybody listening to his commands? He is just a sophomore._

“That is all, S.coups. Your services are no longer required.” Ms. Nguyen shook his hand and S.coups walked off the stage. “Now, you thirty students are officially students of the Institute of the Talented.—Wow that takes forever to say. Congratulations.”

Professor Suarez brought out a hat and placed it on a stool on the middle of the stage. “Now to select your roommates for the next four years.” Ms. Nguyen closed her eyes and a piece of paper, wrapped in a pink aura, levitated upward. “Dino.” She read from the paper and summoned another. “Joshua. Please meet in the back and Professor Suarez will show you your rooms.”

The two students, who I assume are Dino and Joshua, stood up and headed toward the back.

“Wonwoo.” She suddenly said. “Vernon.”

Vernon stood up and began heading towards the back. I sat there uncomfortably.

“Must I repeat myself, mister Jeon?” she looked directly at me and I shot up and ran to the back.

This place was amazingly huge. Sky lights on the ceiling and marble flooring? Compared to my small apartment, this place was heaven. I walked around, looking for Professor Suarez and my soon to be roommate, Vernon. They found me before I found them.

“Hey, are you Wonwoo?” a voice called out behind me. I turned around and saw a young boy with shaggy hair.

“Um, yeah. Are you Vernon?” I asked, obviously knowing the answer.

“Yeah, do you know where Professor Suarez went? This place is huge.” He looked around in confusion.

“Boys, why don’t you stay with the group?” a man called out from across the hallway. The rest of the students were with him and they were being assigned their rooms.

“How did we miss them? I came from that direction—or was it that direction?” I said and we walked over to the horde of students.

Professor Suarez showed us our room and instructed that we only had an hour to get settled and then to meet in the South Gym. _Can I get a map?_ Vernon jumped on the bed next to the window. I took the one by the door _. That’s fine. I don’t need sunlight._

“So, what’s your power?” A curious Vernon asked.

“I don’t know, Ms. Nguyen said I had to ability to summon nature. Or something like that.” I sat against the wall of my bed. “What about you?”

“I can spit fire.” He looked at me. _Are you kidding me?_

“Was that a joke?” I laughed.

“No, look.”

_PTUI!_

A soggy piece of flame flew onto my shoulder, causing my shoulder to light on fire.

“GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!” I screamed and rolled around on the floor.

“I’M SORRY! I’M STILL NEW TO THIS!” he kept trying to hit my shoulder but made it worse by kicking me in the stomach countless amounts of times. After we put the fire out, we decided it would be best to search for the south gym before we had to be there.

The school was honestly perfect. From the outside, it looked like a normal institute, but on the inside, it was like another world! Maybe the whole superpower thing made it seem that way.. Or maybe someone’s superpower was expanding it from the inside. After about ten minutes of walking, we found a gym. A gym. Not the north gym, not the south gym. A GYM. How many gyms did this place have?

“Are you guys lost?” a boy said from behind us. _Not sure why everybody keeps sneaking up on me._

“Yeah, could you tell us where the South gym is?” Vernon spoke confidently for a lost freshman.

“Sure thing, if you take a left down that corridor and then go up the stairs and follow that corridor down to Exit A, take a right and you’ll be there.” The boy said with a smile.

“Is that a joke?” my jaw dropped.

“No, I’m dead serious. By the way, my name is Minghao. I’m a sophomore this year!” Minghao stuck out his hand.

We introduced ourselves and then went separate ways. We followed his instructions to the gym exactly but ended up at the cafeteria.

“Maybe we took a wrong turn?” Vernon suggested.

“Let’s face it, we’re lost. Even with instructions we can’t find the place!”

“Lost you say?” a guy ran in front of us. “Where are you headed? I’ll take you there.”

“The South gym.” Vernon said.

“Alright, right this way!” I blinked and he was already down the corridor. “C’mon I don’t have all day! You’re so slow!”

We ran down the corridor as fast as we possibly could. Upon reaching the place he stood a moment ago, he ran down another corridor almost instantaneously.

“I SEE YOU HAVE SUPERSPEED, YEAH. WE DON’T! WANNA GO A BIT SLOWER?” I called out to him down the hall.

“ARENT YOU LATE? DON’T TALK TO AN UPPERCLASSMAN LIKE THAT! I’M TRYING TO HELP YOU!” he jogged in place, creating dust. We followed him for about ten minutes, continuously stopping and taking a breather every few minutes. Finally, we arrived at the South gym.

“Thank you… what’s your name?” Vernon asked while heavily breathing.

“The name’s Hoshi. I’m hungry. Have fun at orientation! You’ll do great!” he ran off and was out of sight in no time. We walked into the half-packed gym and all eyes locked onto us.

“Nice of you to finally join us, boys. Since you were late, I’ll allow you to clean the slate by impressing me with your abilities.” Professor Suarez said with his hands crossed. “Mingyu, please take a seat. Your power is truly a blessing.” A handsome boy made his way to his seat in the front row after having a staring contest with me. “Now, Vernon, that’s your name right? You’ll go first.”

I took a seat in the far back, hoping to be forgotten about when it came time for me to show off my ‘abilities’. Vernon stood in the center of the gym and stretched his legs. _Why are you stretching your legs if your spit fire with your mouth?_

“Hi, I’m Vernon. I can spit fire.”

The audience giggled as did Professor Suarez. Vernon closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

_PTUI!_

 Right on the front row. _Great, he’s going to kill the handsome guy in the front. Wonderful first day of orientation_. The fire saliva was engulfed in a pink aura and dissipated quickly. Everybody turned to the door, where Ms. Nguyen stood with her hand up.

“Very good, Vernon. Professor Suarez, he needs to learn how to scatter-spray, whole-shot spit, condense the nitrogen in his mouth and work out the dehydration problem.” Ms. Nguyen spoke with authority.

 _Dehydration problem?_ I glanced over at Vernon who was squatting and gasping for giant heaps of air.

“Would one of you take Vernon to get some water?” she asked and a student obliged. “Wonwoo, you are next, right?”

“Uh, but I don’t know what to do.” I explained, embarrassing myself in front of the incoming freshman.

“You won’t know until you try.” She urged me to the center of the gym. _I did try… at home… once you left… IT DIDN’T WORK._

“Hi, I’m Wonwoo. Apparently, I can summon nature.” I cleared my throat.

“Abra Kadabra!” I spoke and extended my hands, expecting something to happen. The class stared at me without emotion. “Open Sesame!” Another fail. The class started to laugh, except for the guy in the front row.

“Why are you laughing in my class? Who gave you permission? Wonwoo, please take a seat. We will work on you later.” Professor Suarez stood up and placed himself in the center of the auditorium while I took a seat. He introduced everybody else after me but I couldn’t watch out of embarrassment.

After class, Professor Suarez stopped me and told me I needed to figure out my power really quick because the next day we’d be selecting teams of three. Before I knew it, I was in my dorm, hiding myself in the blankets and falling asleep, mentally preparing myself for the next day.


	3. Chapter 3

“WAKE UP, WONWOO! WE HAVE TO SELECT OUR GROUPS TODAY! YOU’RE DEFINITELY IN MY GROUP, OKAY?” Vernon jumped on the side of my bed. I stood up, got dressed and fixed my cow-licked hair. “HURRY WE DON’T WANT TO BE LATE AGAIN!”

“I’m coming! Stop yelling.” I followed Vernon to the classroom of freshmen.

“Good, you’re on time today. Take your seats, we will start shortly.” Professor Suarez instructed and began talking with Ms. Nguyen.

Every desk was full except for two that were on opposite sides of the classroom. The handsome boy from yesterday gestured for me to sit next to him, so I did. _Sorry, Vernon._ The guy wore a black t-shirt with blue jeans.

“Hey, the name’s Mingyu.” He said.

“I’m Wonwoo.” I got comfortable in my seat.

“Too bad you aren’t my roommate. I’m sure we’d get along great.” He whispered.

“Sure.. I mean, Vernon is great. Really.”

The teacher hit the board with a stick. “Quiet class, we’re going to begin.”

“Just like in the auditorium, your teams will be selected for you.” The entire class groans “Did you think you’d get to select? Hilarious bunch you are. Anyways, on the Strike team we have: Vernon, DK and Seungkwan. Please step out and your instructor, Jun, will lead you through the rest of the tour.” She said and waited for them to leave the room. Before Vernon left, he looked at me like _damn, maybe next time_. “Next up, Infantry team: Joshua, Dino, Jeonghan. Your group instructor will be S.coups.”

_Six people already in a group, twenty-four to go. The odds of me being with Mingyu are slim._

“Now for our Well-rounded group: Mingyu” I took a deep breath. “Yoolhee.” _Who?_ “And Wonwoo. Plea—”

“YES!” I shouted a little too loud.

“Don’t get too excited that a girl is in your group, Wonwoo. As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted: please allow Minghao to guide you on your tour.” The principal said. We stepped into the long corridor where Minghao met us.

“Aren’t you the guy who got us lost yesterday?” I asked him.

“Probably.” He smiled and led us to the cafeteria. This must be his favorite place. “When in doubt, walk to the cafeteria and look at the giant map of the school painted on the ceiling.” We all looked up and without a doubt; the entire map of the school was laid out in front of our eyes. _I guess that’s why he directed us to the cafeteria yesterday._

“If you don’t mind me asking, what is your ability?” Yoolhee asked Minghao.

“I have to ability to turn my skin into solid iron. Okay, well I don’t know if it’s actually iron; I just call it iron because it sounds cool. ‘Iron Skin’, has a nice ring to it, k’know?” Minghao fixed his hair while talking.

“What about your restriction?” she asked.

“You want to learn my weaknesses? Are you evil? Just kidding! I’ll tell you my restriction.”

“Wait. What’s a restriction?” I cut in.

“Every power has a restriction. It’s almost like the saying ‘Magic comes with a price’. Well, so does having powers. Except the restriction varies depending on the power.” Yoolhee explained.

“My restriction restricts me from moving while my iron skin is being used.” Minghao explained.

“Wait, your iron skin isn’t always on?” Mingyu poked his arm.

“No, would you like to see it?” he didn’t allow us to answer. Instantly, his body froze and turned a dark bronze color. His mouth became skin color and he spoke. “Anybody want to hit me?”

Mingyu volunteered.

“OOWWW!!!!” he yelled and fell to the floor, clasping at his shattered hand.

“Don’t tell the principal, she’ll kill me!” Minghao suddenly became worried.

“We won’t.” Yoolhee spoke for Mingyu.

“What’s your power, Yoolhee? You seem quite confident.” I asked her.

“My intelligence is beyond yours.” She placed her hands behind her back and raised her head.

“Okay, but what’s your power?”

“Ugh. How did I get teamed up with such idiots? My intelligence IS my power. My IQ exceeds any human limit.” She waited for Minghao to give us a tour.

Minghao showed us where each gym was and what each gym was for. Apparently, the regular gym was meant for working out. The south gym was meant for exams and the north gym was meant for school rallies and events. He showed us around the dorms and walked us around every single classroom in the building. By the time the tour ended, I was exhausted.

“And that concludes the tour. Any questions?” Minghao looked full of energy.

“Why do all the students here have so much energy?” I asked while catching my breath.

“Great question—next question?” Minghao decided not to answer.

“I guess, can we go back to the dorms?” I said hoping he would answer the question.

“Yeah, the tour is over. Make sure you’re in the north gym tomorrow: the sophomore senate has prepared a show for you.” Minghao began to walk away.

“WAIT—WHAT TIME?” Yoolhee shouted but he was out of reach before he could hear. “Great. Well, goodnight then.” She left me and Mingyu alone.

“Well, this is awkward.” I stated.

“Yeah, want me to walk you back to your room?” he extended his hand out. _I’m not sitting, dude._ I took his hand anyways. _Oh, wait. You wanted to hold my hand._

He walked me to my room where Vernon was waiting for me. He released my hand and began to walk away. “I’m right next door if you need me.” He winked and entered his room. I felt butterflies build up in my stomach and my face turn a bright shade of pink.

“Aww, that’s cute! You found yourself a boyfriend on the second day! Or is it not even the second day because this is orientation and school hasn’t technically started yet..?” Vernon sounded conflicted.

“Go to sleep, Vernon!” I took off my shirt and threw it at him, then went to sleep.

The next morning, Vernon woke me up.. again. He’s like an alarm clock that you can’t press the ‘snooze’ button on. I got dressed and followed Vernon to the north gym, luckily we didn’t get lost. Finally, Minghao led us to the right gym. It seemed like we were early, so we took a seat in the front row and waited. A couple of hours later, _yeah we were THAT early_ , the rest of the students filed in along with sophomore senate.

“Hi, I’m S.coups. But you already knew that because I introduced myself on the first day. We’re here to show you how our powers work! Just to get you excited for classes in the fall.” He spoke and introduced all the members of sophomore senate.

Minghao went first and showed off his hard skin. It was kind of amazing, actually. The rest of senate threw rocks at him and everything but he was still fine. That seems incredibly useful, though bronze isn’t really my color.

“Next we have Jun, my boyfriend, my boyfriend Jun. HE’S MINE, YOU HEAR?” Minghao glared out into the audience.

“Hello, there. I’m Jun, Minghao’s boyfriend, apparently. I do martial arts.” He started doing things like Judo, kickboxing, karate and even Brazilian Jiu-jistu. I see why Minghao had such a liking for him. “Woozi, your turn.”

“Uh, Hi. I’m Woozi, I can stretch.” The short boy said. The audience let out a chuckle. “STOP IT! I CAN BE TALL IF I WANT!” He suddenly became a giant and everybody shut up. “That’s what I thought.” He crossed his arms and shrunk back to normal.

“I’ll go next!” Hoshi started running all over the gym. After watching him run circles around us, literally, he finally introduced himself. “Oh, by the way, I’m Hoshi.”

“And that concludes our presentation of sophomore senate.” S.coups said.

“Wait, what about your power?” Yoolhee spoke from the back of the gym.

“My power isn’t to be used without permission. Nor is it to be spoken about. Sorry to disappoint.” He apologized. “On the Brightside, you get to go home now! See you all in the fall.”

Home felt like a weird place to be, now that I had somewhere to go to in the fall. My mother was proud of me, again. Or maybe she never stopped being proud, I don’t know. I felt kind of bad that I would be leaving her again. My entire high school life had been at a boarding school, so I was never home much. Even though the school was next door to the coffee shop.. which was next to our apartment. It was complicated. Now it would be even more difficult to see her, which made me sad. She didn’t show any signs of being sad.

The summer went by pretty fast; I got a job to help my mother pay for some of the bills. By the time summer ended, she had quit her second job because we made enough money to catch up on late payments. That’s a refreshing thought before I leave her.

On the night before I had to go to school, we celebrated the way we celebrated on my graduation: with a giant pink frosted cake that read ‘Happy Birthday’. We laughed and talked all night and in the morning, I was on my way to the Institute of the Talented.


	4. Chapter 4

“P _IC_ k up Yo@r S _C_ he _d_ u7e5 aT T _h._ OfFic3” the speakers went off. I think it said something about picking up our schedules at the office? Though, I’m not exactly sure.

The first day of school is normally a place of nerves. Looking around, nobody seemed nervous. I wasn’t even scared. In fact, I was a bit excited to be here. All around, students were practicing their superpowers like it was a videogame. I LOVE VIDEOGAMES!

One girl was shooting rays of fire out of her eyes while another girl deflected them onto other students, zapping them in their rear ends. Some other students were playing tag—speed tag. I couldn’t even make out who was who, but I bet Hoshi was playing.

“Wonwoo, right?” Vernon’s voice came from behind me. I spun around and saw no sign of him. Instead, a smaller boy with a suit and nice hair stood in his place. “Sorry, I’m just teasing you. Vernon isn’t here yet.”

“How did you?” my eyebrow went up.

“I have voice manipulation. The name’s Joshua, by the way. I’m a friend of Vernon’s.” he extended his hand and we greeted each other.

“Have you gotten your schedule yet?” I asked in hopes he hadn’t.

“I was actually on my way there now, shall we go together?” he began walking ahead.

Finding the office wasn’t difficult, and I don’t know why. During orientation, it was nearly impossible for me to find anything. Now that school has started, that isn’t even a worry. This place is definitely magical. At the office, there were about ten signs with different countries printed on them. Sadly, the Korean line had the highest amount of people so that means I would have to wait longer. It seemed like our school was very diverse; that would explain the staff.

After waiting in the line for what feels like forever, I finally received my schedule and my first period was ‘Restrictions’ with Professor Alexander. I hope he is as nice as Professor Suarez, if you would consider him to be ‘nice’.

Upon walking into my first hour, the first thing I noticed is that the Professor wasn’t actually a male. The second thing I noticed was Vernon sitting in the front row, waving his hands like a maniac. Seeing Vernon was an actual sigh of relief. I wonder where Mingyu is. I haven’t seen Mingyu around anywhere. I hope we have class together at least once!

“Class, please take your seats. It’s introduction time!” I sat myself down next to Vernon while the Professor talked. “I just want to say that my husband is J-hope from the one and only BTS and NO I DID NOT USE MY SUPER POWER TO MAKE HIM LOVE ME, ALRIGHT?” The class giggled. “Welcome to ‘Restrictions’. I’m your Professor, Daja Alexander. Does anybody know what a restriction is?”

“Something that holds another thing back?” Vernon’s hand shot up. _Not sure why he rose his hand if he was going to talk without permission anyways._

“Yes, what about restrictions with superpowers?” She pointed around and waited for the answer. I knew the answer, I just didn’t want to raise my hand and end up being called on everyday for the next four years. “Well, restrictions are, in a way, a punishment for the usage of your superpower/ability. We all know Ms. Nguyen. Her ability is telekinesis and future sight, when using those abilities: she develops a massive migraine. In fact, rumor has it that she’s had a migraine since she was five, when she first developed her abilities.”

“Wait, so we take damage for using our powers?” the boy with the dinosaur looking hair said.

“That, in a way, is correct. What’s your name?” the Professor asked.

“I’m Dino! I can clone myself.” He smiled.

“May I show you something?” she took out a pen.

“Sure! What do you want me to do?” the curious boy asked.

“Just one clone of yourself, please. When I tell you, combine back with your clone.” She removed the lid of her pen.

Dino stood up and walked to the front of the classroom next to the Professor. Disgustingly, another body looked like it was trying to escape his original body. Slowly, the other body escaped, leaving two Dinos standing there. It was almost difficult to tell the two apart. I say almost because the clone obviously had a default: its face didn’t match the original. Hopefully that was something he was planning on fixing in the future.

“What now?” he asked. Suddenly, the professor lunged at the clone with her pen and stabbed it in the palm of its hand. The clone shrieked in pain but the original didn’t. “Why’d you do that?!”

“You may now become one again.” She capped her pen. “Can I have a volunteer to take Dino to the nurse in a second?” Vernon raised his hand.

Dino’s clone stepped back into him and it looked just as disgusting at it did when he split into two. Once he was whole, a hole formed in the palm of his hand in the exact spot the Professor had stabbed his clone. Almost instantaneously, the pain hit him and he began crying. He seemed a little young for the college life; maybe he was exceptionally smart and graduated early?

“Please take him to the infirmary, tell them “Professor Alexander got excited” and they will handle him. Quickly, before he bleeds out onto my floor.” Vernon practically carried Dino out of the room. “Now, what was I trying to prove by doing that? Oh, that’s right! Dino had to ability to clone himself, so his restriction was: damage inflicted upon his clone transferred onto Dino when becoming one. In this classroom, we will discover everybody’s restriction and work on making it less impactful.” The professor said as the school bell rang. _This place feels more like high school, if you ask me._

 _Let’s see, what class do I have next?_ I looked at my wrinkled schedule. “Power Development Class with Professor Suarez.” _Wonderful, I know this professor!_ I made my way to his classroom with ease. Upon arrival, a note on his door read “In the South Gym today, be prepared to get dirty.” And let me just say, I was not ready to get dirty.

The gym had an obstacle course set up. Strangely enough, it seemed bigger than how it did during freshman orientation. Almost as if orientation was just a sneak peek of the real thing. I’m not sure if it was always like this, but has Professor Suarez always walked around barefoot? I don’t recall him missing shoes during orientation.

“I shouldn’t have to reintroduce myself. I should have met you all during orientation. However, I will introduce my course. If you didn’t already know, this is ‘Power Development’ class. The name could be taken many ways and I don’t wish to explain them all, instead I will show you. Volunteer please.” Mr. Suarez pointed to the guy sitting next to me.

“Me?” the guy looked shocked.

“I’m pointing at you, am I not?” he said with sass. _Here I thought he said his class would be fun, I didn’t know it would be full of sarcasm._ “Please, come up here and introduce yourself and explain your power.”

The boy walked up to the front quickly. He was a tall muscular boy with a freakishly huge smile. “How you doin’? I’m DK. I can scream pretty loud.”

“Let me stop you there.” The Professor put in ear plugs. “Now, I want you to scream, not to your full extent, the minimum please. And then—”

DK screamed, not allowing the professor to finish speaking. Suddenly, the glass from the sky lights shattered and rained upon us. Soon after he finished yelling, the boy realized what he had done and attempted to help people pull glass shards out of their skin. I looked at my cut up arms and noticed something strange: the pain didn’t exist, but the fear did. Everybody was screaming and crying out for help. The professor sat there and shook his head.

“Class, this is what happens when a student doesn’t listen to me.” I blinked and the teacher stood in the middle of the gym, where DK had just been standing. The sky lights weren’t shattered and glass wasn’t deep within anybody’s skin. DK sat next to me with tears running down his eyes. The class looked around in confusion. “Calm down, everybody. That wasn’t the lesson of the course, that was a personal lesson. In my class, you must listen to me before you attempt anything or you will end up hurting, maybe even killing, us all.”

A student raised their hand. “What just happened? Why aren’t we all bleeding with shards of glass in our skin?” _My thoughts exactly._

“That, my dear, is because it never happened. I have the ability to make people see whatever I’d like them to see.” The class awed with surprise and DK stopped crying. _He sure wasn’t sad for long. You’d think he would be scarred for life after being traumatized like that._ “As great as it sounds, the price is high. I am completely blind because of it. I use my feet to feel my way around. Anyways, onto the course work. DK, let’s try this again. This time: listen to me before you do anything. I will tell you when to begin.” The professor sat down and put his ear plugs back in.

DK walked up in front of the class and waited for instructions.

“Now, don’t scream so loud. If you do, you will injure the ears of everyone in here. Once you are screaming, focus your scream into my ears. You may begin.” The professor closed his eyes and waited.

DK opened his mouth and slowly, his scream began getting louder and louder. It got to the point where half of the class was covering their ears. Then, the sound stopped but DK’s mouth was still open and he was definitely still screaming. I looked over at the Professor and his ear plugs had burst and his ears had a trickle of blood coming down from them.

“Stop DK, you’re hurting him!” I hollered to him, causing everybody to look at me. DK’s mouth closed and he glanced over to the bleeding Professor.

“I’m so sorry, Professor!” he bowed his head apologetically.

“It’s fine. I’m fine. I’ve dealt with worse. You may be seated.” The Professor made his way back up to the center of the gym while DK sat back down. “Who noticed what happened?”

“You bled from your ears?”

“He screamed?”

“DK should join choir?”

“No, his one power: loud screaming. Was used in another way. His scream was only heard by me at the end. You see, this class will teach you how to manipulate your power to its maximum potential. DK, right now you are able to shatter glass and ear drums. When the year is over, you will be able to crack cement and scramble brain cells. Do you all see what my class will do for you? You’re dismissed.” The professor walked out before us.

That last class is probably my favorite class so far. I wonder if there is a way for him to teach me how to use my power. I can’t do anything until it I can use it at will. Let me think about this: Principal Nguyen said I had the power to summon nature at will, so does that mean I can strangle people with rose vines? NO! It means I can pick roses for Mingyu.

Wait, where is Mingyu anyways? I haven’t seen him all day. I wonder if he dropped out. No, I haven’t seen Minghao either and there is no way he dropped out as well. Maybe I will see him during lunch time.


	5. Chapter 5

“Wonwoo! Come sit with us!” Vernon motioned me over.

The table was completely full. People I had never met before were sitting there. I recognized some of the freshman and some of the sophomores but some of them were fresh faces to me.

“At the table we have Joshua, Jeonghan, DK, Seungkwan, Dino, Mingyu,” he took a quick breath and continued “Minghao, Jun, Woozi, S.coups and Hoshi. Wow, that’s like Seventeen of us, right?” he sat down and took a bite out of his sandwich.

I looked at Mingyu who motioned for me to sit next to him.

“That’s thirteen, smart one.” Minghao flicked Vernon’s forehead.

 Minghao was sitting on Jun’s lap and they were sharing a salad. _If I remember correctly, doesn’t Minghao turn into a statue or something? Should he really be sitting on top of Jun like that?_ Hoshi had approximately thirty plates of food and was rapidly devouring them two by two. S.coups seemed to be busy staring at a clipboard and editing its contents. The rest of the guys were just eating lunch and talking about their classes.

“What class do you have next?” Mingyu poked my shoulder.

“Um.. It says here that I have ‘Superhero Work’ with Aubrey. But Professor is crossed out?” I looked closely at the weird schedule.

“Hey, so do I! Maybe this is the class for our mini groups? You know, the one with Yoolhee.” He stared at his schedule like he was waiting for it to tell him if he was correct or not. “Anyways, how was your summer? I missed you. I mean, how was your summer?”

“It was good,” I giggled. “Don’t be shy, I missed you too.” The table stopped what they were doing and looked at us.

“Dating already, are we?” Minghao spoke.

“WHAT? UH. NO.” My chair fell back and I fell onto the floor. Mingyu helped me up and my cheeks turned a bright shade of pink.

“Whatever you say.” Minghao turned away and kissed Jun on the cheek. The rest of the group slowly lost interest and continued doing what they were doing before.

Am I moving too fast? Is this a relationship already? What if I am moving too slow? What am I talking about, I just met the guy! Okay, but Romeo and Juliet worked out well.. No wait, they ended up killing themselves.

“If you like me, can we take it slow please? I like romance.” I whispered into his ear.

“Should I flirt a lot?” he replied back into my ear. I nodded in approval. The bell rang and the group parted ways. I followed Mingyu to class and sat behind him.

“Hi kids, I’m Aubrey. Call me Aubrey, not ‘PRo _f_ FEs _or_ ’ Aubrey; that sounds atrocious. My name is beautiful as it is and I do not need a professional title to enhance it! But welcome to my class! This is where I prepare you for life beyond the ‘Institute of the Talented’. As we all know, powers aren’t common in this world and for that reason; they aren’t highly praised. So in this class, I will be drawing/ writing/ painting/ singing/ typing scenarios for you to survive. If you take too long, the art will go bad and you might die.” She hummed.

If that wasn’t the most confusing paragraph I’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is.

“I will divide you into your groups that you were assigned during freshman orientation.” She said with her eyes closed and a smile on her face. _I don’t recall seeing everybody from freshman orientation in this class. Did I get stuck with the other half of people I didn’t bother meeting? Great._ “You will have ten minutes to escape this dimension and return to your seats. Go!”

 Suddenly, the world around us starting spinning and the roof blew off, leaving nothing but the floor and the desks. Everybody in the classroom, with the exception of Mingyu and Yoolhee, vanished. The wind was strong and the sky was flashing in different colors. It was becoming more and more difficult to breathe. Yoolhee and Mingyu tapped me on the shoulder and we all held hands so we wouldn’t fly away. Everything stopped and I blacked out.

“Wonwoo, wake up! We have to get out of here.” I heard Yoolhee’s voice call out.

“Wonwoo, hurry! Before the spiders eat us!” Mingyu’s voice woke me up.

I looked around and saw darkness. I was unable to move, something was restricting me. I glanced towards the sound of Mingyu’s voice. Just barely, I managed to make out a white substance holding him back.

“What is restricting us?” I called out.

“A SPIDER WEB, YOU IDIOT. LOOK UP!” Yoolhee shouted.

I glanced up to see eight glowing red eyes coming for us. The sound of crawling filled my ears. There was definitely more than one coming.

“If you want to survive, you must work together.” Aubrey’s voice filled the void.

“How can we do that? I can’t even use my power!” I screamed in frustration. Yoolhee was shaking the entire web, but nothing was working.

“You can summon nature, right? Cut us out of here with a rose bush or a blade of grass!” she squirmed around.

“I don’t know how to!” I fought back.

“Wonwoo, I believe in you.” Mingyu’s voice soothed me. _Wait a second, why isn’t he helping? I will deal with that later._

I focused my energy onto a rosebush, or a rose, or a vine, or a thorn. Whatever would help us escape. _Eomma, help me. Please._ I waited for something to happen.

“Okay, now cut yourself loose!” Yoolhee’s voice interrupted me. I looked down at my finger to see a thorn for a fingernail. _That’s disgusting._

I tried bending my finger towards the web but it wouldn’t reach. Sweat fell down my face as I concentrated to make it longer. Why can’t I do this? I glanced over to Mingyu to see half of his body covered in thorns. He began scraping himself free and swinging on the cut webs over to us.

“How did you?” I asked in confusion. _Does he have the same power as me?_ He cut me free and I fell into the dark void, landing on a soft black cushion. Soon after, Yoolhee fell on top of me.

“Could you be any softer?” She asked sarcastically.

“Could you maybe land on the CUSHION BELOW US NEXT TIME?” I pushed her off of me and she landed onto the cushion.

Not too long after, Mingyu fell onto the cushion, only: he brought a friend. A massive spider lay on top of him, trying to bite through his thorns. I reached out to help him and a massive tree shot out of the cushion and impaled the spider. Mingyu looked at me and then back to the spider. He motioned his hands the way I did and the tree grew three more branches, raising the spider off of him. _Did he just copy me?_ The sound of spiders crawling intensified.

“Where is the escape?” I called out.

“It should be there somewhere. Look around.” Aubrey’s voice filled the void again.

“The cushion! Rip the cushion open! We’re surrounded by webs; it’s the softest area to break through!” Yoolhee said as she started tearing away at the floor. I looked over at Mingyu and back at Yoolhee. “Don’t just stand there! I don’t plan on being spider-food!”

“Just a reminder, the spiders are your timer. Once they reach the ground, your time is up.” She started to sob. “And that means I lose three students.” Aubrey began crying.

Without hesitation, I began clawing the cushion beneath me. Mingyu seemed to be having an easier time. He willed the branches of the trees to start slashing their way at the cushion while he dug with half-a-thorn body.  After digging for a while, Yoolhee found a golden key.

“Great, what does this unlock?” we all looked around in confusion. “We have to be missing something, let’s see. The trap was the web, the timer was the falling spiders, the giant spider was the enemy and the cushion was the key. What could the door be?” Yoolhee looked at her hands and counted her fingers. _Such strange methods_. I glanced up and could see a small wall of spiders descending slowly. I stared at the only thing Yoolhee didn’t mention: the void.

“Throw the key into the void. Think about it, everything in this place has a use. The only thing we received from the void was—” I was interrupted by a know-it-all Yoolhee.

“The voice of someone outside! You’re a genius!” she hugged me and looked around in confusion. “That was strange, emotions. Eww.” We ran to the void and she threw the key in. Suddenly, a tear split the void and just before the spiders collapsed onto us, we jumped through the tear and landed in our seats in the classroom.

“Oh, perfect! You made it back just in time!” Aubrey was sitting next to a type writer and typing like a mad woman. She took the paper out and shredded the words. “It’s a shame that some of these people didn’t make it out. Hopefully the infirmary can recover what’s left of them.”

I looked around and half of the class was missing. _This lady is a killer!_ Everybody, that was left, looked half-traumatized and in pain. Mingyu was no longer covered in thorns and he had his soft milk-white skin back. On the other hand, Yoolhee looked like she saw a ghost.

“Alright, kids. That’s how my class will work from here on out. Don’t expect it every day though, exams are only on Fridays. Consider this a… pretest. You’re excused.” She dismissed us.

“I’ll talk to you later, Wonwoo. I don’t feel too well.” Mingyu left before me.

“What’s his problem?” I looked at Yoolhee.

“It probably has something to do with the fact that you both share the same power. Maybe he wants a real man that can use superpowers to the best of their abilities.” She smirked and walked away. _Four years of her? Maybe we can leave her in one of Aubrey’s scenarios next time._

I walked back to my dorm and Vernon was already passed out. His shirt was lifted over his face and his blanket was lying on the floor. I picked his blanket up and threw it on top of him. He jumped at the sudden movement and sat up.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to wake you.” I walked over to my bed and stripped down into my pajamas.

“It’s fine. Hey, did you have Aubrey today? Her class is amazing! She’s such a genius! I mean, the way her scenarios work are just perfect! Well, nice talking. I’m going back to sleep.” And he passed out instantly.

“Goodnight, Vernon.” I passed out after him.


	6. Chapter 6

“Cla _s5_ Es ar3 cAn _c3lE_ d t0daY. W _i_ Ll tEaM d _1_ sTRac7i _O_ n pLEa _s3_ c0Me To _t.e_ oFfice.” The loudspeaker blessed us with hideous, yet glorious, news. I don’t hate school; I just really appreciate free time. “Al5O, J30 _n_ WO _n_ Wo0. P _l_ 3aSe cO _m3_ to tH. o _7f_ Ice.” I enjoyed my five seconds of freedom.

In the office, Principal Nguyen and Aubrey were waiting for my arrival. S.coups, Hoshi and some golden-haired girl were also waiting. I assume they are “team distraction”.

“Sorry you don’t get a free day, but on the bright side: we get to help you with your powers!” The principal led us into a room with four seats that didn’t look at all pleasant.

“Are we sitting in those?” I asked.

“Yes, my child. It’s safer this way. My power can sometimes be.. a little destructive.” Aubrey twirled around the room.

“Team Distraction, it’s your mission to keep Wonwoo safe. Got it?” The principal passed out walkie-talkies to them. “Wonwoo, your mission is to unlock your powers and I don’t mean just a burst of luck. A thorny fingernail won’t save you forever.”

“I also made a tree grow!” I countered her.

“We don’t want you running on luck, do we?” she began strapping Hoshi into his chair. The chair looked like a mechanical abomination. It had a contraption that went over your head and looked like a spiky salon hair-dryer. The arms and legs of the chair contained leather straps to restrain us from moving. Once Hoshi was strapped in, Aubrey began to sing a song. I have no idea what language it was. Maybe Japanese?

“Your turn, Wonwoo.” Vi called me over. I sat in the abomination of a chair and waited as everything was being strapped around me. “Don’t worry too much, these guys will protect you.”

“Do I get a walkie-talkie?” my eyes were already covered from the hair-dryer-looking-contraption.

“No, you won’t need to communicate with anybody from the outside.” She said as she poked me with a needle.

The lights went on and the world was white around me. I was no longer strapped into the chair and I was completely alone. Forest trees began sprouting out of nowhere. The sky turned a shade of light blue and clouds became present. Tiny forest animal sounds began echoing all around me. The smell of wild fruit filled my nose. The golden-haired girl from team distraction appeared next to me.

“Uh, Hello. What do I do?” I looked around for Hoshi and S.coups.

“Practice your powers, that’s it.” She took a seat on the nearest fallen log.

“If that is it, why are you here?” I followed her.

“I have the ability to boost people’s power and remove their restrictions. I guess that makes me like a fancy potion you don’t have to drink.” She took out a mirror and began applying foundation.

“Can I at least know my fancy potion’s name?” I eyed the walkie-talkie attached to her belt.

“Megan. Now go play. In ten minutes come and get me.” She stood up and started walking away, still applying makeup. _Why apply makeup if you already look good? Girls._

I looked around, in hopes of seeing Hoshi or S.coups but couldn’t see any signs of their presence. _I guess I practice my powers?_ I stuck my hand out over the soil and concentrated on growing a flower. Surely enough, a stem began to sprout. Soon enough, the stem grew leaves and blossomed into a daisy. _You’re pretty, even though you aren’t the flower I was trying to grow._

_Squeak Squeak_

I looked over my shoulder and saw two baby squirrels with their tiny arms extended.

“Aww, hey there, little fellas! What can I do for you?” I watched one of them point up to the giant pine tree next to me. At the top, baby pinecones were blooming. _Such a strange place._

“You want pinecones?” I watched as they shook their tiny heads. I glanced back at the pine tree and saw that it had grown about fifty feet higher than when I looked at it previously. _Does this place ever stop growing? Well, there is no way I can climb that high. Maybe I can knock one of them off with a rock or something._

I picked up a rock and looked back up at the pine tree, which had grown another fifty feet. _I can’t throw that high. Maybe I can somehow make the branch fall?_

“Alright, little guys. I am going to try and make the branch fall, watch out.” I glanced at the not so small squirrels. Somehow, they had matured into full-blown adult squirrels. _Did I grow that daisy or did this world grow it for me?_ I focused my energy at the smallest branch of the still growing tree and watched it snap. As it fell, it grew larger and larger. _It wasn’t that big before!_ I jumped out of the way as the branch fell onto the squirrels.

A cloud of smoke filled the surrounding area. As it cleared, the shadow of two massive beasts emerged.

_SQUEAK!!! SQUEAK!!!_

“WHAT DID YOU DO, WONWOO?” Megan’s voice came from the side of me. She ran over to me and picked me up.

“I didn’t do anything! This world keeps growing!” I told her and she glanced at her watch.

“I told you to tell me when it’s been ten minutes!” She picked up her walkie-talkie. “Hoshi, we need a quick escape. Scoops, calm Aubrey down!” She grabbed my hand and put her walkie-talkie back onto her belt.

The two giant squirrels sniffed around. They red glowing eyes reminded me of the spider’s eyes from Aubrey’s previous scenario. _Is this where we die?_ Megan pushed me out of the way and backed up as a tree flew in between us.

“Pay attention, maybe?” She said and hid behind a tree. The squirrels knew where we were now, so hiding was useless. “We need to run, Hoshi is taking too long.” She rolled out of the way just as the first squirrel knocked her tree down onto the second squirrel. _They aren’t that smart._

Before I could move out of the way, the tree next to me began to entangle its branches around me while the grass made me unable to walk.

“C’mon, we have to—dang it!” Megan took out her makeup kit and pulled out a stick of lipstick. She removed the cap and revealed a red blade. Quickly, she began cutting away at the branches but she wasn’t fast enough.

“Give it here.” Hoshi’s voice was heard before his body arrived. He took the sharp lipstick dagger and swiftly cut me free. “Hold on tight!” He grabbed the both of us and the scenery began to change. _How fast was he going?_

“I’m going to be sick.” Megan wrapped her arms around Hoshi and Hoshi almost let go of me.

“Whoops, sorry Wonwoo. I’m not used to carrying more than one person at a time!” he came to a stop in the middle of a desert.

“Why did we stop here?” I scanned the place for signs of life. The only thing that had any life was the cacti, but they looked half-dead.

“I guess Aubrey wants to sing a song about the desert.” He picked up his walkie-talkie. “Scoops, how about something a little more family friendly?”

“I don’t know what she is singing. How can I get her to make it friendlier?” a voice came through the other end. “I’ll try.”

A few seconds later, blades of grass began to grow from the soil-colored ground. Flowers of all kind began to blossom, adding a perfume aroma to the air. A stream of water trickled between me and the two of them, spliting us apart. Before I knew it, the area was a meadow with a giant river in the middle.

“This time, call me before ten minutes are up. Okay?” Megan said while still holding onto Hoshi. I turned away from them and sat down. _What to do now?_ I looked around at all the pretty flowers.

A caterpillar crawled onto my foot and rested. Please don’t be evil. It curled up into a cocoon and turned into a butterfly, flying away into the sunset. _SUMMON NATURE. DOES THAT INCLUDE ANIMALS?_

I focused my energy on making a small puppy. I thought about the time when I was little and my puppy ran away from me. _Bring me back my puppy, please._

_Aruff! Ruff!_

I opened my eyes and saw a small puppy with golden brown fur. I picked up the puppy and held it close, its fur hugging my skin. _Nature is great._ I looked up at the sun and saw it setting further. _Has it really been that long?_

“Megan, it’s been about ten minutes.” I glanced across the river and saw no signs of Hoshi or Megan. “Megan? Hoshi?”

_Woof Woof_

I turned back to my growing puppy. _Oh, no. It’s happening again. Not my puppy! AUBREY YOU’RE SO EVIL!_ Before my puppy, or dog, could grow anymore, I concentrated on strapping it down with vines. The ground beneath the dog spit out thick vines that entangled the dog, causing it to whine.

“Megan, we need to leave, right?” Still no sign of her.

_Grrrrraaawr_

I turned to my once small puppy, who seemed to no longer be a dog either. Instead, a vicious black wolf with glowing red eyes took its place. The wolf began clawing at the vines, breaking itself free. I backed up towards the river, which had piranhas jumping out of it.

“Hoshi? S.coups? Megan? SOMEBODY HELP ME!” I screamed and closed my eyes as everything lunged at me. I felt bite marks form all around me and the pain slowly set in. _This is it, this is where I die._

The sound of a sonic boom rushed passed me, stopping bite marks from spreading. I opened my eyes to witness a red moon in the sky and burned trees all around. The only pleasant sight was the one of Megan’s golden hair rush toward me in slow-motion. Her hand extended as she was holding her walkie-talkie.

“You don’t feel pain.” The voice of S.coups settled in my head. His voice soothed my wounds and soon, I forgot I was even in pain. The bite marks remained, but the pain faded. Megan took the walkie-talkie back.

“Tell her to stop singing; we need to take Wonwoo to the infirmary.” She reattached her walkie-talkie to her belt.

My vision went blurry as I watched a metal contraption lift over my head. I saw Principal Nguyen and Hoshi unfastening the straps that kept me tied down. The sound of Aubrey sobbing in the background confused me. _Does she have control of her power? Or was this her restriction?_ I looked down at my half consumed body, yet felt no pain.

As soon as I was free from the metal contraption, Hoshi pushed my half unconscious body onto his back and ran to the infirmary room. The pain was slowly beginning to return. At the infirmary, a few nurses waited to treat me. What really shocked me was the sight of Jeonghan in a nurse’s gown. _Why was he here?_

His hands moved around my body and everywhere he touched, a white light radiated. The sensation of the light tickled and I burst into laughter. After the procedure was complete, Jeonghan informed me that I would need to stay in bed rest for two weeks.

_TWO WEEKS? WHAT I AM GOING TO DO FOR TWO WEEKS?_


	7. Chapter 7

That was the most boring two weeks of my life. I wasn’t allowed to talk to anybody except for the principal and Jeonghan. As lovely as those two are, the conversation gets really repetitive. “How are you feeling today?” and “Did you read that book for your class?” I’ve had just enough about it!

I’m happy to be able to move around freely. To be honest, I miss going to class. I miss being in the presence of people. As much as I hate to admit it, I miss arguing with Yoolhee!

“Sup, idiot.” She smacked me over the head and walked away.

_Okay, maybe I don’t miss her so much._

During first hour with Professor Alexander, I found out that my restriction was dehydration. The strange thing is: it’s the same restriction and my dragon-of-a-friend Vernon. In Professor Suarez’s class, he told me I have the most potential he’s seen in years. I thought that was a lie because he said the same thing to Mingyu. I’m surprised Mingyu made no attempt to see me while I was in bed rest. _Was he really considering finding someone new to like?_

Lunchtime came rolling around and I made sure to sit next to Mingyu.

“Hey.” I didn’t look at him.

“Hey.” He replied.

I took a bite out of my sandwich and watched the rest of the group interact with each other.

“I’m sorry—” Mingyu and I spoke at the same time causing us to giggle. “You first. No, you first. Stop it!” the group looked at us. “Sorry!” we bowed our head apologetically into our sandwiches.

_HAHHHAHAHAHAHAH!!_

My face grew red out of embarrassment. I looked over at Mingyu, who had a slice of ham hanging from his cheek. Mingyu picked up a carrot and rubbed my cheek with it. _Great, I have become dipping sauce._ He bit the sauce-covered carrot and smiled.

“Let’s go wash up before Scenario class, yeah?” Mingyu grabbed my hand and led me to the bathroom. He washed my face with the end of his shirt while I stared at him helplessly. I grabbed the piece of ham and threw it into the garbage can.

“Your face plant into the sandwich was much nicer than mine was.” I teased him.

“What do you mean? At least your meat wasn’t thrown out! You only lost some sauce.” He rubbed his hand through my hair causing it to spike up.

“My hair!” I started trying to fix it. Mingyu laughed and put me into a headlock as we walked to Aubrey’s class.

“No class today, my beautiful children. You still have an assignment: join a club and help the school grow in its community!” I could almost hear Aubrey’s voice while reading the sign on the door. _Dang, you miss two weeks of class and when you try to go back: THERE IS NO CLASS._

“Clubs?” Mingyu stared at the paper as if he were interrogating it.

“What should we join?” I grabbed Mingyu’s shoulder and pulled him away from the sign at the door.

“How about wrestling? I’m pretty good at putting people into headlocks!” He brought back a painful memory that occurred not even five minutes ago.

“That doesn’t sound very fun.” I frowned.

“Oh, c’mon! You will never know until you try.” He put me into a headlock and dragged me to the wrestling club.

If I had known that the wrestling team met on the roof of the school, I would have punched Mingyu in the face as soon as he suggested the idea. Looking over at him, I saw that he hadn’t realized where they met either. The wrestling team was made up of a group of men and women that looked like bodybuilders. I’m not the smallest person in the world, nor am I the biggest, but when you compare me to these people: I might as well be a button on their shirt. The smallest guy on the team was Seungkwan from our lunch group.

“Seungkwan, wanna wrestle?” Mingyu ran over to him and put him into a headlock. The rest of the wrestlers looked over and gasped in fear. _Did Mingyu do something disrespectful?_ They started chanting “fight” and “mistakes were made”, making me fear for the handsome Mingyu. _Was Seungkwan good at wrestling?_

Mingyu and Seungkwan changed into a tighter outfit and stepped onto a flat blue mat.

“I’ll go easy on you, alright?” Seungkwan cracked his neck. _Eww.._ The bell dinged and the two boys went head to head. By the looks of it, Mingyu seemed to be winning. _His headlock is no joke._

“Super Tantrum” the crowd chanted. “SUPER TANTRUM.” Their voices gradually got louder. “SUPER TANTRUM!!!” Seungkwan’s skin started turning a dark maroon color and the tips of his hair became curly. Soon, he looked like a devil-baby wearing tight clothes. Seungkwan broke himself free of Mingyu’s headlock and pinned him onto the floor.

_Stay down, Mingyu. Please, this doesn’t look good._

Mingyu’s skin began turning a dark maroon color, just like Seungkwan’s. Eventually, it looked like two massive devil-babies fighting. _How did Mingyu do that?_ Seungkwan only turned a brighter red color while his hair twisted into mini horns. _HE HAS THE POWER TO BECOME THE DEVIL?_ This time, Mingyu didn’t have the chance to power up: he was thrown off the side of the building.

“MINGYU!” I ran to the side of the building and grew a rosebush to lessen the blow of the fall.

“OWW! A ROSE BUSH? REALLY?” he slowly ripped himself from the entanglement.

“Sorry, it’s the first thing that came to mind.” I left the roof and meet Mingyu in the cafeteria.

“At least we know that we shouldn’t join the wrestling club.” He blushed.

“What was that out there? How did you do the same exact thing he did?” I confronted him.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Wonwoo. Please.” He turned around but I walked around to face him.

“If this is ever going to work, we have to have communication.” I waited for him to reply. Instead, he grabbed me by the arm and started pulling me to an unknown place. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute.” He led me into the school’s greenhouse.

“Why are we in here?” I looked around at the nature blooming in the confined space.

“Grow a rose, please?” he poked my shoulder and gave me puppy-dog eyes. _I can’t resist those eyes. Dang it, Mingyu._ I placed my hand over a patch of soil and waited for the flower to bloom. Instead of a rose, three tulips decided they’d like to make their debut.

“Uh, close enough?” I smiled weakly.

“It’s fine.” he kissed my cheek and we both backed up from each other. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.” I raised my hand to touch the warm spot on my cheek. _Dang it, Mingyu. You know I can’t hold back a blush._ “Anyways.. look.” He grew three more tulips and a daisy. “The daisy was luck.”

“Wow, okay. But how did you do that?” I picked the daisy out of the ground and smelled it. _Pretty._

“I can copy people’s powers as long as I see them do it in action and I can only use one copied power at a time. It kind of sucks because I take on their restrictions. That Seungkwan guy has a pretty terrible restriction.” He shivered and made a sound of disgust. “I hate powers that don’t allow you to control yourself during use. What’s the point?” he laughed.

“So is that how you copied my power?” I asked already knowing the answer.

“Yeah, by the way: your restriction is dehydration and sunlight. Though, you probably already know that.” He grew a rose out of the ground. _I didn’t know about the sunlight.._

“You have more control than I do.” Jealousy spoke for me. Slowly, he plucked the rose out of the ground and put it into the pocket of my shirt. The atmosphere in the room lifted and became ten times brighter. Nature, all around us, began blooming as I looked into Mingyu’s gentle eyes. A smile escaped from the sides of my mouth.

“Wonwoo, we need to get out of here. Someone’s coming.” Mingyu’s face became pale as he watched the handle of the door turn. He pushed me onto the ground and kicked me underneath one of the tables.

“What are you doing in here?” an unfamiliar voice said.

“I was thinking about joining the gardening club.” Mingyu lied.

“We don’t have a gardening club.” The voice said. “Liars don’t belong at this school.”

A black cloud swirled around Mingyu’s feet and worked its way up. I tried to call out for help but Mingyu had wrapped my mouth with the stem of the rose he stuffed into my pocket earlier. Tears escaped my eyes as I witnessed Mingyu become completely engulfed in a dark cloud. The cloud sparked and vanished, leaving nothing in its place.

“Darn kids. Always entering in places they shouldn’t be entering.” The man’s voice moved further away. I looked at the floor and saw a sign that read ‘do not enter’. _A little late for that, don’t you think?_

Quickly, I ran for the door and headed back to my dorm. As soon as I got inside, I closed the door and locked it behind me.

“Why do you have a plant wrapped around your face?” Vernon looked up from his comic book. _I guess I was too caught up in the moment to remember to remove the flower from my mouth._ “Are you alright, bro?” he set his book down and sat on my bed next to me.

I willed the plant to release my mouth and told Vernon what had happened in the greenhouse.

“Who’s Mingyu?” Vernon looked confused.

“Mingyu. You know, the guy I like.” I flicked his forehead.

“Ouch! Hey man, it’s great that you like someone but don’t flick me in the head for not knowing who he is!” Vernon walked back to his bed.

“Wait, you really don’t know who I’m talking about?” My stomach began to feel uneasy.

“Sorry, dude. Goodnight though.” He put the lamp off, leaving the room completely dark except for the moonlight shinning in.

I didn’t sleep at all that night. My eyes never left the flower he shoved into my shirt pocket, eventually leading it to become a device that forbids me to speak. _I hope this is a bad dream and I will wake up from it, if I ever do fall asleep._

_I hope you’re okay, Mingyu._


	8. Chapter 8

“Yoolhee, have you seen Mingyu?” I called out to her from the other side of the cafeteria.

She walked over to me with her lunch on a tray. “No, why?”

“Mingyu was kidnapped by a black cloud and a man with a creepy voice.” I looked around to make sure nobody would hear my insanity.

“What are you talking about?” She laughed hysterically. “You’re insane. Too much carbon dioxide getting to your head, plant brain.” _You’re a genius and that’s the best name you can come up with?_ She walked away from me, sat with her friends and enjoyed her lunch.

I sat with the group at our usual spot. Everybody seemed to be acting completely normal and doing what they’d normally be doing during lunch. Minghao and Jun were being boyfriends, Hoshi was eating a horse, Seungkwan was wearing a ridiculously tight suit and Dino was making his hair stand up. I glanced over to the empty chair next to me and felt a knot in my throat.

The bell rang and I walked to Aubrey’s class alone. In her class, I was forced to sit with Yoolhee with the accompaniment of Mingyu.

“Hey, plant brain. Where’s Mingyu?” she whispered to me while Aubrey scribbled on the board.

“That’s what I asked you, smart one!” I said a little too loud. _Really, Wonwoo? ‘Smart one’ was the best you could come up with?_

“Silence, or enter my keyboard.” Aubrey glanced over to us and then continued scribbling on the board.

“Sorry!” we said in unison.

“What did I just say, you brats? You are on punishment.” Aubrey sat down and began typing on her keyboard with a stern look on her face. _Did we get teleported back to grade school?_ “The two of you will sit in detention for twenty minutes!” DETENTION? _TWENTY MINUTES?_

The world started spinning as the school around us was destroyed by a massive twister. As the walls blew apart, new walls fell from the sky, encasing us in a dark room. This time, I didn’t pass out and I heard the sound of everything being constructed. It’s too bad that we couldn’t see what was being built.

“Where are we?” Yoolhee asked.

“I don’t know, Yoolhee. It’s dark.” I said sarcastically. The ground felt cold and metallic, almost like a ventilation system.

“Did Aubrey seem a little off to you?” Yoolhee seemed to forget about the situation we’ve become trapped in.

“What are you going on about?” I asked, not caring for an answer. With my hand, I felt around the floor for signs of where we could be.

“Think about it, she is usually so ‘hippy’. All of a sudden, she is so stern and detention-giving.” Yoolhee obviously had other things on her mind versus escaping.

“Great observation, let’s escape now?” My hand found a metal object. Picking it up and feeling it, I discovered that it was a crowbar. _Why would we need a crowbar?_ “I found a crowbar.”

“Great, that’s how we escape this room, but where is the door? Isn’t there some plant that can light up or something?” She patted my body until she found the crowbar and took it away.

“Plants don’t emit light unless they’re genetically altered. However, there are a few animals that do.” I focused on conjuring a firefly.

_Bzzzzz_

“Bees don’t emit light, stupid!” she punched my chest.

“I’m pretty sure that’s a fly,” I clenched my stomach in an aching manner. “And I was aiming for a firefly.” I attempted to summon a firefly. A small orb of light flickered as it flew across the room. One firefly wasn’t going to do the trick. My throat became dry and my skin began to shrivel as the room lit up from the newly summoned group of fireflies. The room had a light ambience, allowing us to see that we were in a science lab. The walls were spray painted with things like “we’re all infected” and “don’t let them bite you”.

A kart was in front of the door, but that pops the question: is the kart keeping us in or keeping something out?

“Great, zombies. Thank Aubrey!” Yoolhee held her crossbow like a bat. We searched the room for anything of use, but found nothing but chemicals and let’s face the facts: we didn’t have enough time to cure the world of zombies. However, we did find an open air vent and climbed up it. “Can you summon more fireflies?” Yoolhee tugged at the back of my shoe.

“Not unless you remove my restriction.” I kicked her gently in the face.

After crawling in the air duct for a while, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I kicked the vent open and landed on my face. _Too bad Aubrey didn’t provide cushion flooring like before._ The outside world was definitely the apocalypse. Buildings were abandoned; trees were half burnt, half fallen. On the bright side, there were no zombies.

“Kill zombies by killing their brain.” Yoolhee did a fancy trick with her crowbar.

“What’s my weapon?”

“Plants? Flies? Up to you.” She started making her way down the creepy abandoned city streets.

From the looks of it, there were no ‘escape’ routes. My guess is that detention doesn’t require an escape because there is no escape. That explains her wording ‘sit in detention for twenty minutes’. Don’t her scenarios go bad after ten minutes though?

“Why don’t we just hide for twenty minutes?” I pointed to the lovely abandoned warehouse.

“Where is the fun in that?” she grabbed me by the collar and we continued looking for danger.

“I need water if I am going to protect myself.” I stopped her from walking any further. Instead of following danger, we went to the local park and I sipped from the green pond. _Tastes much better than it sounds, don’t worry._ After regaining my energy by drinking and absorbing the sunlight, we went back to danger.

I’m not sure why Yoolhee wanted to find a horde of zombies; I’d be okay with a single zombie. Hordes are a little too difficult.

In a matter of minutes, we spotted our first undead. Before the zombie could even turn around, Yoolhee had attacked the life out of it. Literally, she killed it. With her crowbar. _Is she this bored?_  Sadly, the zombie had a few more zombie friends, and by a few: I mean a lot. It was like a school rally.

“Yoolhee, we can’t fight them. There are too many of them!” I began backing up into the zombie horde that somehow managed to come from behind us as well. “LOOK AT WHAT YOUR ‘INTELLEGENCE’ CAUSED!”

Yoolhee looked at me and winked. She turned to the front zombies and her eyes began to glow a light yellow color. The entire army of zombies in front of us stopped and, with their glowing yellow eyes, ignored us and began fighting the zombies behind us. _Are they on our side? I’m so confused._ The army of the undead fighting against us had blue glowing eyes. _Strange, isn’t it supposed to be red?_

“Something strange is happening.” Yoolhee backed up and we retreated to a safe spot. “Why are their eyes blue?”

“My thoughts exactly” We peeked out the window to see our army being devoured by the undead. The blue-eyed ones had grown bigger and somehow found armor, leaving the yellow-eyed zombies at a disadvantage.

“I think I know what’s going on. It’s Professor—” she vanished into thin air.

“Yoolhee? Where’d you go?” I looked back out the window to see both armies stop fighting each other and focus their attention onto me, their eyes gleaming blue. _Why did Yoolhee disappear? Is it because she figured something out? What’s there to figure out..?_

I couldn’t let myself be trapped in an abandoned building, so I fled into the nearby park. More and more undead found me as I ran past them. Before I knew it, I was completely surrounded. Their glowing blue eyes stared deep into my soul. _What can I do?_ My eyes locked onto the nearest trees. _Duh!_

“WAKE UP AND HELP ME!” I called out to the nearby trees. Suddenly, every tree in the park grew a pair of eyes and lifted their roots out of the ground; their branches acted as their hands. I couldn’t let the trees fight my battle for me, they were incredibly slow and I didn’t have enough time for them to get to the center of the horde. Instead of waiting, I looked at the grass and willed it to become a literal blade of grass.

The grass all around obeyed and stood straight up. Every time a zombie would step, their feet would get stuck on the grass and they’d fall. Soon enough, the undead were tripping over each other, allowing my trees plenty of time to destroy them. After all the undead were.. dead, the trees walked back into their respected places and planted themselves. Instantly, my throat lost all hydration and my skin felt withered. I tried crawling to the pond but my eyes were too heavy and my limbs felt too weak.

It went dark.

I opened my eyes to see Mingyu standing in front of me. _Am I dead? Is this heaven?_

“Wonwoo, we need to get out of here. Someone’s coming.” Mingyu’s face became pale as he watched the handle of the door turn. He pushed me onto the ground and kicked me underneath one of the tables.

 _Wait, what?_ The pain was all too familiar.

“You needn’t hide, Wonwoo. Come out.” Professor Suarez’s voice called out. “You’re test is over.”

“What’s going on?” Mingyu asked the professor as I stood up and gasped for air.

“When did you look me into the eyes?” I asked him while Mingyu looked around as confused as ever.

“You’re in a greenhouse; the walls are literally made of glass.” The witty professor commented.

“Why? Test for what?”

“I needed you and Yoolhee to learn a new technique. I was going to allow her to stay with you, even after she figured out how to control an army with her mind, but she was starting to put the pieces together. So, I set her free.” He laughed and took a seat on the nearest stump.

I couldn’t sit or even look at him. He took me away from Mingyu and Yoolhee; he left me alone in a dangerous situation that I could’ve died in. This man is crazy.

“Don’t be mad, it’s my job to do this.” He snickered.

“Why didn’t you bring Mingyu with us? He is a part of the team.”

“Then you would want to defend him and your powers would have spiked out of luck. Plus, he didn’t need to learn anything new. Not yet, that is.” Mingyu looked at him curiously. “Aren’t you glad that you were able to create life and control it? See you both in class tomorrow, and Mingyu: you’re next.” The professor stood up and left the greenhouse. “I’m such a great teacher!” his voice faded.

“What’s going on?” Mingyu was still as confused as ever.

“Professor Suarez used his illusionary powers on me. He put me and Yoolhee into a false world where you no longer existed and then made alternate Aubrey put us into one of her scenarios which happened to be a zombie apocalypse.” I said as quickly as possible.

“Did you miss me?” he smiled.

“Yes, I did.” I went up and hugged him.


	9. Chapter 9

“Wonwoo” Vernon coughed. “Wonwoo, I don’t feel good.” My head went under my pillow to ignore the sound.

_Peace and quiet, just the way I like it._

I closed my eyes and fell back asleep. The smell of smoke filled my nose, causing me to wake up. My head poked out of the covers and with one eye opened, I saw smoke escaping Vernon’s mouth.

“You’re disgusting.” I picked up a random shirt from off the floor and threw it at his face. The shirt landed on top of his face, covering the smoke. Slowly, Vernon began to hyperventilate in his sleep. Small embers made their way through the shirt, almost setting a fire. “Vernon, wake up!”

“Huh?” Vernon jumped of fright. He removed the shirt from his face and breathed in heavily. “Wonwoo, I can’t breathe.” He continued hyperventilating, embers flailing from his mouth.

“Calm down!” I fell out of bed and looked around for some water. By this time, the room was filling up with smoke and it was getting harder and harder to breathe. Instead of continuing to look for water, like an idiot, I dragged Vernon outside of the room. _Great, now the school is going to die from inhaling smoke!_

I leaned Vernon up against the wall and checked his temperature. Not sure if it’s high because he’s half dragon or if he is sick. Looking at the obviously non-well boy, I decided it’d be best to take him to the infirmary before the school burnt down. As I made my way to the infirmary, with Vernon riding on my back, people were beginning to step out of their rooms with their pajamas on. A lot of them looked confused and tired, but a select few were jumping up and down like “OOH WHAT’S GOING ON, I WANNA SEE!”

“Wonwoo,” Mingyu coughed and ran over, helping me carry a sick Vernon. “What’s going on?”

“Vernon might be a little sick.” I said it like a joke and looked up to the smoke infested ceiling.

Traversing through thick smoke made finding the infirmary much more difficult. I’m surprised the fire alarms hadn’t gone off yet. My shoulder felt an immense amount of heat. I turned my head to see a knocked out Vernon drooling lava on my shoulder. The neck area of my shirt was beginning to singe off, revealing one Wonwoo chest. Lucky for me, Vernon hadn’t mastered his heat control. The worst damage was a slight burn and a melted shirt.

Finally, after about ten minutes of traversing the halls in a hazardous smoke, the fire alarms went off and the sprinklers kicked on. I thought the fire alarms would be helpful, you know: save some lives. No, it just made it a hassle to move around. Can you imagine not being able to see, carrying a boy who is drooling fire onto your shoulder, listening to alarms announce to the world that there’s an obvious fire, all while slipping on a now wet floor? It’s not fun.

We arrived at the smoky infirmary and Jeonghan was prepared for our arrival. Gently, we placed a passed out Vernon onto the mat. Jeonghan checked his vitals and poured water down his throat. _Isn’t that a bit dangerous?_ He began using his healing abilities on Vernon’s throat, lighting it up. I felt a hand press down onto my burned shoulder.

“Sorry,” Mingyu moved his hand away. “Let me try and fix it.” His hand lit up a white color and he placed it back onto my shoulder.

It felt different than when Jeonghan did it, but that might be because I was under S.coups influence. The light felt cold, but relaxing, almost like swimming into the shady area of a pool after being attacked by the sun.

“Feel better?” Mingyu’s voice snapped me out of it.

“Yeah,” I pushed his hand away. “It’s fine.” I focused my attention back onto Vernon. “Do you know what’s wrong with him?” I asked a healthy looking Jeonghan.

“No, but I’m sure it’s nothing serious.” He smiled and continued his work.

“Let’s go remove the smoke, yeah?” Mingyu grabbed my not fully-healed shoulder and I cringed.

“Yeah, let’s do that.” I began walking a head of him.

Every student seemed to be searching for the fire source. Little did they know, it was just smoke from a kid who was half-dragon. _He hates it when I call him half-dragon._ We informed the school of Vernon’s trouble and things began to settle down as students knew how to fight the ‘danger’. The sky lights opened up, releasing tons of smoke into the outside world. I hope people didn’t suspect anything of us.

After the crisis had been solved, people returned to their dorms and fell back asleep. I said my goodnights to Mingyu and returned to my dorm. The dorm smelled of smoke and saliva. _I guess I wasn’t getting too much sleep tonight._ I removed the half-burnt shirt and threw it away. My shoulder was blistered and the skin was peeling, but I didn’t want Mingyu taking care of me like that. I know, it’s stupid, but I can take care of myself. Besides, if another situation happened like the one Professor Suarez placed me in, I need to be able to help myself in the off chance of Mingyu not being there. I sucked up the pain and fell asleep.

The next morning, I looked over to Vernon’s bed and remembered that he wasn’t there. _Aww, poor guy. Feel better soon, bud._ From my ‘extensive’ shirt collection, I pulled out the raggedy one I used to wear back when I would help my mother clean the house. My shoulder seemed to be getting better, it wasn’t bubbling so that was a good sign.

My first class was pretty boring without Vernon there to distract me. Professor Alexander just went on about her Husband, J-hope, and how happy they were together. On the bright side, we didn’t do much work; just a few worksheets on how to recover from our own restrictions. I knew how to do that, due to the tests of both Professor Suarez and Aubrey.

My second class was pure torture. I was still upset at Professor Suarez for taking me away from both Mingyu and Yoolhee, well not so much Yoolhee. Not only that, but for placing me into a zombie apocalypse! As if that would ever happen. Though, Aubrey does place us in similar challenges; giant spiders, rabid body-building squirrels, puppies that turn into wolves, piranhas, and the list goes on and on! Today, Professor Suarez made us run the obstacle course as if our lives depended on it; which it didn’t because it was all just an illusion so we wouldn’t have an excuse for why we couldn’t run it a countless amount of times. It took me 46 times to pass the course, I blame my shoulder. Scratch that, I blame Vernon.

The bell rang and I made my way to Aubrey’s class. I waved to Mingyu and began walking to sit next to him, but an angered Yoolhee stood in the way.

“What do you want?” I asked her.

“What happened yesterday? Well, to you. I know ‘what happened’ to me. That darn Professor Suarez and his methods of teaching.” Yoolhee shook her head in disapproval. _I had forgotten that it just happened and I forgot to check in with her after I was freed. Whoops._

“Your army turned on me once you.. left? And then I ran into the park and fought them off with an army of trees.” I pushed her out of the way and sat next to Mingyu, who was patiently waiting.

“How’s your shoulder?” he reached over to touch it but I backed away from his reach.

“Oh, it’s fine! Just a little sore.” I lied.

“Alright class, take out your books and turn to page—” She was interrupted by the sound of a glass-breaking shriek.

Everybody’s head poked into the corridor to see what was going on. Nobody could see what was going on because there was a giant cloth wrapped around the halls. A few students attempted crawling around the cloth but ended up returning without any hopes of escape.

“DK, WHY ARE YOU SCREAMING?” Mingyu’s voice rang in my eardrum.

“IS WOOZI SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO STRETCH THIS MUCH?” DK’s voice sounded like a cleaner intercom. _This piece of fabric is Woozi?_

I poked the fabric and ended up losing my finger to his bellybutton. Mingyu pulled me back and I flew into the classroom. Glancing over to Aubrey, I saw her typing on her typewriter as a man with wavy hair and puppy dog eyes wrapped his arms around her. _Is that her imaginary boyfriend?_

“Bad time, Aubrey?” I interrupted their moment.

“Huh?” she stopped typing and threw her typewriter onto the ground. “What boyfriend?” she adjusted her fogged-up glasses.

“A7tEn _t1_ On 5Tu _d_ 3NTs, pl3A _5e_ rEmAin C0l _m w_ h.le w _e_ At. _e_ MPt tO _r0_ L1 WoOZ1 iNto Th3 inf1rMary.” The intercom spit out. _Attention students, please remain calm while we attempt to roll Woozi into the infirmary?_ I think that’s what it said.

 _What’s going on here?_ First Vernon almost setting the school on fire, now Woozi blocking the halls with his short, yet stretchable body? Is a disease spreading throughout the school? Well, Vernon and Woozi don’t share a room. Maybe it spreads differently? _I’M SO CONFUSED._

While we waited for Woozi’s elastic body to be rolled up into the infirmary, Aubrey made us practice in one of her scenarios. It wasn’t scary this time; in fact, it seemed to be getting much easier now that I unlocked more of my abilities. Not to mention, that cheater Mingyu copying my abilities. After we escaped her simple scenario, Woozi was wrapped up and we were able to leave. I returned to my Vernon-less dorm and laid on the bed.

“ _If you want to save your friends, meet me on the roof tomorrow at 9pm. Come alone._ ” A familiar voice said.

I sat up in my bed and looked around, but nobody was there. Instead of staying in my haunted room, I gathered my things and knocked on Mingyu’s door. DK answered it.

“Hi, Wonwoo. What are you doing here?” he looked at my pillow and blanket that I was carrying.

“Uh, nothing.” I hid the items behind my back and started heading back to my dorm.

“Wait, you can come in. It’s fine, I don’t mind.” DK opened the door for me and I walked in.

“Wonwoo? What are you doing here?” Mingyu sat on his bed and looked at me in confusion.

“I think my room is haunted and you said if I ever needed something, to come over.” I stood there like a child trying to sleep in his parent’s room.

“You can sleep on my bed, I can take the floor.” Mingyu rolled off of his bed and allowed me to sleep on his bed.

Sleeping on his bed made me feel much safer than sleeping in my haunted room without Vernon to spit on the ghost.


	10. Chapter 10

“I looooove you” DK twirled around the room at 2 in the morning.

“Dokyeom, go to—OUCH, DID YOU JUST STEP ON ME?” Mingyu stood up and put DK in a headlock. “THINK YOU CAN STEP ON ME AND GET AWAY WITH IT?”

“I can—because I love you.” DK’s voice cracked.

All while this occurred, I did everything in my power to ignore it: cover my face with the covers, cover my ears with the pillows, and even think about DK’s loud, yet soothing, voice. None of it worked.

“Dokyeom: stop biting me! We are not this close!” Mingyu hollered and I heard them fall to the floor.

“You guys: be quiet or you’re going to wake the ghost next door. DK, go to bed. Mingyu’s my boyfriend.” I spoke out of frustration. Having realized what I just said, I threw the covers off of my head and sat up straight. “I mean, Mingyu’s my.. friend. Who is a boy. Yeah, that sounds about right.” I glanced over to the wrestling scene next to me. Both of their eyes had a bright pink glow. “Are you guys okay?”

“Fine, why?” Mingyu looked at me. “Are YOU okay? Why are your eyes glowing pink?” He released a suffocating DK.

I picked up my cell phone and looked at my reflection. My eyes were normal, no pink glow in sight. “What are you talking about? My eyes aren’t pink, yours are.” I tossed him my phone and he checked his reflection.

“No, I don’t see anything.” He tossed it back.

“That’s strange; we can’t see our own glowing eyes? Can you see DK’s glowing eyes?” I asked him.

“No, you’re the only one with glowing eyes.” He replied.

“You both have glowing eyes to me, because you’re so beautiful.” DK raised his head and passed out. Mingyu picked him up and threw him onto his bed.

“We’ll see what’s going on in the morning. In the mean time, get some sleep. Boyfriend.” Mingyu giggled and fell asleep on the floor next to me. I fell back asleep, watching a soft pink glow radiate through his eyelids.

In the morning, both DK and Mingyu still had bright pink glowing eyes. DK was still complimenting and confessing his love for us while Mingyu tried his best to keep him grounded. After getting dressed, I parted ways with the guys and made my way to my first hour. The door was locked and there was a sign on the door that read “Professor Alexander is in the infirmary, free period.”

 _Why is everybody ending up in the infirmary?_ Considering I didn’t have any friends with a free first hour, I decided to visit Vernon.. and I guess Woozi.

Upon reaching the infirmary, the first thing I noticed was Vernon’s glowing pink eyes. I sat in the chair next to him and felt his forehead, regretting it instantly. His temperature must have been the same temperature of his fire spit. A hand found my shoulder, causing me to flinch.

“Are you okay?” Jeonghan’s eyes glowed pink as well. “What’s wrong with your shoulder? Shirt off, now.” I obeyed and took my shirt off, revealing the fire damage. “Was this because of Vernon?”

“Please don’t blame him; it’s my fault for not treating it. Mingyu tried helping but I didn’t want his help.” I confessed to Jeonghan while Vernon slept his little heart away.

“Sit; I’ll see what I can do.” Jeonghan put on some glasses and inspected my arm. “You should have let him heal you. This burn mark probably won’t go away for a good year.” His hand shined a bright white color and pressed against my shoulder. It didn’t feel like Mingyu’s copy of his power, it wasn’t cold or relaxing.  It felt almost necessary and unwanted; if that makes any sense. “I won’t make you stay in bed rest anymore, but make sure you take care of yourself. Don’t be ashamed to have people help you. You never know: one day, it might just save your life.”

Before I left, I looked over to Woozi, who seemed to be free of the pink-eye virus. _Did I just refer to it as pink eye_? Next to Woozi, Professor Alexander was being worked on by the Principal. Professor Alexander’s body was a bright pink color. _Is she the source to the pink eye virus? There I go again, calling it pink eye virus._

Second period was the same old second period I’ve had since the beginning of school. Professor Suarez makes a sassy remark, assigns us 10 laps around the obstacle course, and makes us restart if we aren’t fast enough. What really excited me was to find out who else’s eyes were pink. The only person in second hour who had pink eyes was DK.

Lunch time rolled around and the gang, excluding Vernon and Woozi, sat at the table. Minghao decided to use Jun as a chair, because apparently there weren’t enough chairs, despite two members missing. Jeonghan and S.coups both blushed and looked in opposite directions of each other. Did they know something the rest of us didn’t? _ARE THEY TOGETHER?_ Hoshi stared at Megan from a distance, he looked a bit worried.

“Sooooo, whose eyes are pink?” DK gathered the group’s attention. “Everybody’s eyes are pink to me. Are you all sick?”

“That’s not what it means,” Jeonghan coughed. “If you see pink eyes, it means they are a possible mate for you.” He ducked underneath the table.

“WHAT? DOES THAT MEAN I LOVE YOU ALL?” He began walking around the table, giving hugs to everybody. “Jun, who’s eyes are pink to you?”

“Minghao’s, obviously.” Jun kissed Minghao on the cheek.

“What about you, Minghao?” DK stood in between their kiss.

“Jun, duh. Go away.” Minghao pushed his face backwards, causing DK to fall onto the table behind us. _Wasn’t it a bit obvious the two lovebirds would see each other’s pink eyes? Wait. Does this mean I see DK, Mingyu, Jeonghan, Vernon, Hoshi, Jun and Joshua as possible mates?_

“Why do you look so nervous? Wonwoo.” Minghao said from across the table. _This little brat, why am I friends with him?_

“I just remembered that we have a test in Aubrey’s class today.” I lied.

“Do you now?” DK recollected himself. “Whose eyes are glowing bright pink to you?”

I gulped before I began talking. “I don’t see anybody’s eyes in pink.” I lied and DK knew it.

“That’s not what you said last night.” DK shot back.

“It faded, I must have realized that you weren’t the one.” I fired back, taking the victory. I glanced over to Mingyu and his eyes were looking down. “Are you okay, Mingyu?” I whispered to him while everybody discussed their potential mates.

“You don’t like me?” he whispered in confusion.

“I do.” I thought about my words, carefully deciding my fate. “I’m just shy, y’know?”

“No, I don’t know. I really like you, but if you don’t want to be together: then we won’t.” He stood up and said his goodbyes. His pink eyes were still glowing, so I didn’t lose hope. _I just hope I didn’t mess it up too much._

“Megan’s eyes are pink.” Hoshi interrupted my thoughts. “I was worried about her until Jeonghan explained what the coloring meant. I’m glad she’s the only one I have a potential to mate with.” His wording sounded hilarious, making half of the group crack up.

The rest of the conversation I chose to ignore. My thoughts were all flustered and I was unable to comprehend any words anyways. I stared at my uneaten lunch and made the lettuce grow a pair of eyes. _Oh, piece of lettuce. Tell me what I did wrong._ Hoshi grabbed my sandwich and devoured my lettuce-of-a-friend.

The bell rang and I made my way to Aubrey’s class. Before walking in the door, Yoolhee stopped me. _What do you want?_ Her face was worried.

“What’s up with all these girls having glowing pink eyes?” she looked around as if every girl in school was possessed. “Did I accidently turn them into my zombie army?”

“No, it just means you see a future with them.” I tried getting passed her but her small, yet strong, body prevented me from moving forward.

“Like as in friends? That’s disgusting.” She let me get through and we took our seats. Mingyu’s seat was empty. “Where’s Mingyu?”

“I don’t know.” My voice came off as sad.

“What did you do this time?” she laughed and flicked me on the forehead.

“That doesn’t help!” I tried punching her in the face.

“Alright, class! I hope you studied last night because I am giving you a pop quiz!” Aubrey twirled over to the empty canvas and pulled out different colored paints. _I WAS ONLY JOKING WHEN I SAID WE HAD A TEST; WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?_ “Oh, Mingyu isn’t here today? I will just summon a few sophomores to help your team out. Be warned, you can only use two sophomores and only one at a time.” She spoke directly to me and Yoolhee.

Before being sent off into the pop quiz, Yoolhee and I exchanged worried looks. The last time we were sent into one of ‘Aubrey’s scenarios’, (which was actually Professor Suarez’s illusionary trick) we were put into a zombie apocalypse.

“Here is your mission for the pop quiz. Don’t come back if you don’t succeed. You have ten minutes before everything starts attacking you.” She began to sob. “I don’t want to lose more of my beautiful children!” She began painting on the empty canvas, starting with a yellow brush.

For the first time, the room wasn’t devastated by strong winds. As she lightly dabbed her paintbrush against the blank canvas, the color transferred onto our eyes. Slowly, as she painted more, our eyes got vision of a desert. The sky was a bright yellow color, almost blending in with the sand. As more terrain was being painted in, Yoolhee stood next to me.

A timer was painted onto the sky, already ticking down from ten minutes. Immediately, we began looking around for our mission. On the floor, there were seven items laid out: a piece of paper, a Band-Aid, a black belt, a rubber band, a cross, a bullet, and a pair of running shoes. ‘Pick three’ the sand spelled out.

“Well, the piece of paper contains our mission. So, we need that.” Yoolhee grabbed the paper and the sand changed its phrase to ‘Pick Two’. “I assume the rest of them are items that will help us with the mission, right?” She began to read the Mission paper. “Save the girl from the bandits, she’s tied up somewhere high.”

“Should we pick items that will help us defeat the bandits?” I asked.

“Duh, you pick one and I will pick the other.” She picked up with bullet and the sand’s message became ‘Pick One’. “Your turn. Please be good.”

I walked up to the items and tried finding meaning behind them. The rubber band seemed worn out and about ready to snap. I’m not sure how the cross could help us. The shoes seemed useless, considering we were already wearing shoes. The only items I would consider taking were the Band-Aid and the black belt. The Band-Aid might be useful if, you know, the bandits hurt us.. I mean the girl. Maybe the black belt will help us reach the high place she is at. I looked up at the sky and saw we had nine minutes remaining. In a hurry, I picked up the black belt and we made our way across the desert.


	11. Chapter 11

The temperature began to rise as our time went down. It’s bad enough it was mid day in the desert; did Aubrey have to increase the temperature too? After a few minutes of walking, we saw an abandoned oil factory. We obviously knew it wasn’t abandoned. The mission stated that we should beware of the bandits and to save the girl, so obviously there was somebody here.

We entered the oil factory and it was full of cobwebs. _Please tell me we don’t need to fight a mutant spider bandit._ The place smelled of dirt, which was strange considering it was supposed to be producing oil. The windows, high on the walls, were dirty but still let in enough light for easy access around the place.

“Should we split up?” I asked and looked at the piece of paper containing our mission. _Tied up somewhere high…_ I glanced up at the ceiling but saw nothing that caught my eye straight away.

“No. What if I need you to protect me?” Yoolhee took the piece of paper away from me. “It says she’s tied up somewhere high, but how high are we talking?”

“We’re running out of time, let’s just split up. If you are in dire need of help, use that bullet. Besides, can’t you just make them slaves or something?” I took the black belt and went an opposite way.

Since the mission hinted at her being somewhere high up, I went up a few ladders and checked the scaffoldings. On the highest scaffolding, there was another piece of paper and a sign that read “take me”. Since I am a very polite person, I took it. Little did I know, it would cause the building to implode. As I took the paper, sirens went off and the place flashed with red lighting. Oil began spilling into giant tubs, making the place hard to breathe in. The doors we entered through shut closed and became barred, preventing an escape.

“What did you do?” Yoolhee called out in distress.

“I picked up a piece of paper!” I called out over the scaffolding. From the edge, I saw her running away from what looked like to be an alligator.. made out of oil? “What are you running from?”

“I want to say a bandit but there’s no girl to save in here, so I’m going to say a monster!” She started climbing the ladder that I came up and met up with me on the highest scaffolding. “Let me see that paper.” She ripped the paper out of my hand and began reading. “Did the mission tell you to look at an oil factory? NO! It said somewhere high, like a cliff. OOPS! I SPOILED THE MISSION! Oh well, you probably won’t escape this death room anyways. Say ‘hello’ to Ali the Oil Alligator for me.” _I could almost hear Aubrey’s voice in that message._

“Okay, so we need to escape?” I grabbed the paper and threw it into Ali the Oil Alligator’s mouth. “AUBREY SAYS HI!”

“She actually said ‘Hello’.” Yoolhee corrected me.

“I MEAN AUBREY SAYS HELLO!”

“Focus on the situation at hand, you idiot!” She hit me on my half-healed shoulder, causing me to shriek in pain. “You didn’t get that healed?”

“I did! He said it would take a while for it to be fully healed, though.” I scanned the room for an escape. At the bottom, the room was being filled with over flowing oil. Ali the Oil Alligator was patiently waiting for the oil to rise to our level.

“We can’t use our items here, this is a side mission. We need to escape without using them. Got any ideas?” Yoolhee, the intelligent one, asked.

“I know! Make Ali the Oil Alligator into your minion and he can bust the windows or something.” I said and she obeyed, causing the gator’s eyes to glow yellow. As soon as the oil level was about the scaffolding’s height, Ali swam over to us and we hopped onto the yellow-eyed creature. Its body felt empty, like we could have fallen through it, but we didn’t. The gator swam us to the dirty windows that were high up against the walls and began smashing its body up against it. Just before the oil reached the ceiling of the oil factory, Ali broke through the window, causing an oil leak to fall to the ground as we held on tight to the Oil Alligator.

As we hit the ground, the oil stopping our fall, the walls of the oil factory began imploding. We hopped off the alligator and looked around for the tallest sand cliff. The highest one was about a minute run there, so we decided that was our best hope. We decided to leave the alligator at the destroyed oil factory, just in case ten minutes passed and it goes rouge. The clock in the sky told us we had approximately five minutes remaining; we needed to hurry.

At the base of the mountain, a bandit with a bandana covering its eyes stood guard. We hid behind a rock as he walked around, holding an old-fashioned gun.

“We need that weapon so we can shoot this bullet.” Yoolhee whispered. “I can’t control them, they have no eyes. This is all you.”

I looked at the scenery around the bandit for anything of use. The shrubbery around him seemed lifeless, that wouldn’t be of much help. I looked out into the distance and saw my inspiration: a cactus.

As the bandit moved around, I summoned in mini cacti as he stepped. When he made his return trip, he didn’t bother looking down and tripped onto a pile of baby cacti. _Sorry, cacti._ His gun flew out of his hand and I caught it before it could fall onto the floor. _Smooth, Wonwoo, really smooth._

Yoolhee snatched the gun out of my hand and loaded in the bullet we picked up at the beginning of the mission. Then, we made our way up the mountain. At the top, a plateau was set up perfectly for a fight scene. Too bad we didn’t feel like fighting. In the middle of the plateau, a girl with brown hair was tied up. She was surrounded by a bunch of men that looked like the bandit at the bottom of the mountain; all of them had their eyes covered. _Did Aubrey know about Yoolhee’s new power?_

Standing at the cliff of the mountain, a Cyclops waited with his arms crossed. His giant eye glared at the oil factory.

“DID THEY DIE IN THERE? SOMEBODY GO CHECK!” The Cyclops’s voice was loud and manly, despite him not being human. The surrounding bandits ran down the mountain. _Hopefully we save the girl before they realize we are already here._ Yoolhee, and her brave soul, stepped out to confront the Cyclops with her gun at the ready. Before the Cyclops could say anything, she fired her weapon.

Instead of a bullet firing, a person was summoned.

“MINGHAO WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHERE’S MY BULLET?” Yoolhee looked furious.

“You summoned me, duh. I’m here to help.” The sassy Minghao said.

“GAURDS, THEY’RE HERE!” The Cyclops shook the mountain. Almost immediately, the bandits made their way back up the mountain and began shooting at us.

 Like the smart people we are, we hid behind the small, yet sturdy, Minghao. His body acted as a shield from their over-sized bullets.

“So those items at the beginning were items to summon a certain sophomore! We should have taken the cross, it was probably S.coups and we could sure use a voice of reasoning right about now!” Yoolhee threw a fit.

“Does that mean the black belt will summon Jun?” I didn’t allow her to answer. Instead, I threw the black belt behind the bandits and waited for his summon. A cloud of smoke took the place of Minghao, leaving us vulnerable to the firearm.

Considering the bandits used older guns, their ammo was much larger than a normal bullet in modern day. A few shots from them left us on the floor, almost unable to move. Luckily, the black belt did summon Jun. Using karate; Jun incapacitated the bandits, stopping their gunfire.

“Thank you for getting me out of class, Professor Suarez has been on my case all week!” Jun smiled over our bleeding-out bodies. “Oh, right!” He helped us out and healed us using some ninja technique that he recently learned. It stopped the bleeding, but the pain didn’t leave.

“GAURDS, WHY DO YOU LAY THERE? I TOLD YOU TO STOP THEM!” The Cyclops jumped in a fit. His tantrum reminded me of a crazy Seungkwan. Before the Cyclops could realize what he was doing, the floor underneath him gave way and the Cyclops fell to his doom.

“The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” Jun laughed. “Was Minghao here?” He picked up the bullet that didn’t fire earlier. “Aww. I missed all of the fun.”

“No, he was just the bulletproof vest before you arrived. You didn’t miss anything except bullet wounds.” I stood up in pain. I helped Yoolhee up and we untied the girl. She didn’t speak or make any reactions to just being saved. _Did Aubrey forget to program her with.. I don’t know, emotions?_

“Congratulations on passing my pop quiz. Your score is: 93. Time left is: fifty three seconds remaining. Congratulations, you will be seated in 30 seconds.” The emotionless girl became Aubrey’s intercom.

“Well, thanks Jun. See you at lunch, oh and tell Minghao that we’re sorry for not using him properly.” I smiled weakly.

“That’s okay; I will make it up to him!” Jun chuckled and combed his hair with his hand.

Thirty seconds passed and color dripped from our eyes, revealing a classroom. Cool transition, Aubrey. Most of the class had been already finished their quiz but a select few had their heads down, most likely stuck in Aubrey’s pop quiz. She allowed us to leave class as she waited for the other kids to escape. Before I left, I heard her sob as she tried adding more paint onto the messy canvas.

I went back into my dorm and remembered why most of my stuff was missing. I had a decision to make: Do I go up to the roof and meet the ghost or do I ignore it completely? I sat on my bed and thought for a while. Before I knew it, I had fallen asleep in my dorm. I woke up at 8:57 pm and rushed out the door, having made up my mind.

I went up to the roof and waited for 9 pm. There was no sign of anyone coming to meet me, but I waited a little bit longer. My eyes began getting heavy as my head started to fall. Just before my eyes closed, I saw a figure form out of dirt and dust.

“ _Sleepy, are we?_ ” the voice was muffled by my exhaustion and his rocks-for-vocal-chords. I passed out as my body levitated upward.


	12. Chapter 12

“Wonwoo, what’s going on? Who’s this rock guy? IS THIS THE GHOST?” Mingyu’s voice filled my ears. My eyes couldn’t open and my voice was non-existent. I tried to move but gravity seemed to have changed. My body floated weightlessly off the roof of the school. My senses were no longer my own. “Let him go, you creep.”

“ _I have no business with you. Leave, or pay the price._ ” The creepy rock ghost muttered.

“I’m rich. How much does this stupid boy cost?” Mingyu tried defending me. _He’s rich? Did he just call me stupid?_

“ _Your life._ ” The rock ghost said and I was released from the chamber of gravity he was containing me in. Finally, my sense returned to me and I could open my eyes. The moon was almost at its prime. My skin tingled from the icy air.

“A little help?” Mingyu sounded conflicted. I turned to his general direction and saw him holding up the rock ghost in a pocket of gravity. Mingyu’s hands were shaking, almost as if it were extremely heavy. “Like, now?”

Quickly, I stood up and regained my balance. Without thinking, vines encased the void of gravity the rock ghost was trapped in. Almost immediately, I understood the weight Mingyu was dealing with. This thing was incredibly heavy; I’m not sure if it’s the void or the fact that it’s a ghost made of rocks.

“We can’t hold him much longer!” I struggled keeping the vines from snapping.

“Maybe we don’t have to!” Mingyu nodded his head and we carried the massive load over the edge of the ceiling and let go. A pile of rocks collapsed onto the school’s front lawn, leaving no sign of a ghost. “Should we.. like go tell the principal or something?” Mingyu seemed just as clueless as I did.

“Yeah. That’s what responsible people would do, right?” we turned around and started heading into the building. Before we made it inside, sounds of loud rumbling came from behind us. Mingyu spotted it first and tapped my healing shoulder as I looked over to the direction of a clump of rocks merging together.

The first rock ghost was human size and took the shape of a humanoid. This new rock ghost was not small and was not human shaped. Rocks clumped together to form a massive gorilla. The craftsmanship of the rocks were amazing, the first one wasn’t nearly as clean-cut as this one is. In the naturally lighting of the night sky, it was hard to tell that it was completely made out of rocks.

“ _I WILL TAKE YOU BOTH!!!_ ” The massive gorilla’s words shook the ground.

I lost my footing and tumbled down the stairs, leaving Mingyu alone. As soon as I caught my balance, I ran back up the stairs and entered the rooftop. I was too late. As I entered, the giant gorilla jumped off the side of the building with Mingyu in its hand. On the ground, a vial full of a light yellow liquid sat next to a note.

_Here’s a dosage of the cure for the disease I’m creating_

_I don’t mean to harm you so use it wisely_

_Come after me if you want to save this boy_

_-Earth_

I put the note into my pocket and stared at the weird vial. It seemed to be translucent and glow-in-the-dark. To be honest, I really wanted to taste it. I didn’t want to taste the cure; I just wanted to know how ‘glow-in-the-dark’ tasted.

Instead of taking the cure down to the infirmary, I went to Yoolhee’s dorm. I knocked on the door but there was no immediate answer, so I knocked again. The door opened and a bed-head Yoolhee stood in the door frame, wearing pink pajamas.

“Nice pajamas.” I giggled.

“What do you—,” She yawned. “Want?” she looked at her wrist-watch. “It’s almost midnight, go to sleep.” She tried closing the door on me but my foot caught it before it could close.

“Wait, I need your help.” I took out the vial containing the antidote.

“What’s that?” her eyes widened as she examined it. “Is this what I think it is? The cure, right?” she took the lid off and smelled it.

“Yeah, long story. Can you make copies of it?”

“Of course I can! Can it wait until the morning?” she yawned and passed it back to me.

“No. I need to go save Mingyu.”

“What did you do this time?” she sighed and we headed towards the science lab. On the way, I told her what happened and she listened respectfully. After I finished explaining, she hit me over the head and called me stupid. In the science lab, she set up all sorts of mechanical looking things and placed the vial into a computer scanner. All sorts of buttons began lighting up and she walked around in her lab coat pressing them at an insane speed.

If I hadn’t known better, I would have guessed her power was super speed. Before I knew it, she had made a copy of the antidote.

“Need anymore?” she tossed the copy to me and I caught it.

“I need you to stay here and make more; this disease won’t go away without a few more dosages.” I placed the vial into my pocket.

“But I want to go with you.” She stopped the process of copying more.

“I can’t wait for you to finish. You need to stay here and make more antidotes! I will take somebody else.” I walked out of the science lab and removed my belt. Before she could come to the door, I tied the doors shut with my belt.

“DUDE!” She pounded on the doors. “FINE! YOU OWE ME BIG TIME FOR THIS!”

“Cover for me, please?”

“YOU OWE ME DOUBLE!”

“Thank you!” I tapped the door and walked over to the infirmary.

The infirmary doors were locked and the lights were off on the inside. My guess is that Jeonghan doesn’t work 24/7. I poked my finger into the keyhole and tried unlocking it with a small thorn. The thorn broke inside of the keyhole and the door unlocked. _Dang, they’re going to know I was here_. I walked over to the sickly, pink-eyed Vernon and poured the vial down his throat. It took a second, but Vernon’s temperature fell back to normal and his eyes opened.

“Woah, that was a crazy dream!” he sat up and pat his body. “Dude, why are your eyes pink?”

“Long story, I’ll explain on the way. We need to go save Mingyu.” I picked him up and we headed back to our dorm. “Please, get dressed for an adventure.”

“An adventure you say? What to bring?!” he grabbed a backpack and filled it with a large assortment of snacks. He stripped down into almost nothing, causing me to look away, and changed into some awkward looking outfit. In a matter of minutes, his bag was almost bigger than he was.

“You’re going to carry all of that?” I threw my normal sized backpack over my shoulder and waited by the door. Vernon attempted to move with the massive load on his shoulders but couldn’t inch forward at the slightest.

“I’ll just bring some water.” He left the backpack and shoved some water bottles into his never-ending pockets.

Before leaving the school, we went back up to the roof to see if I had missed any clues as to where they went. The only thing I managed to find was a trail that was left by the massive rock gorilla. Off of the side of the building, a path of broken trees and unleveled earth made its way out of the city. I’m not sure how the people of the city managed to miss a giant gorilla carrying a really attractive male, but they did.

Instead of walking back downstairs and going through the front doors of the school, I thought it would be much more entertaining to climb down on a wall of vines. Not only would it make it feel more adventurous, but it would be like practicing my power for the big fight; if one did occur. Summoning the vines seemed easier, now that vines seemed to be my specialty. Slowly, I made my way down the side of the building and waited for Vernon to come down.

“I’m tired.” Vernon panted as he reached the ground.

“We’ve got a long way to go; should I go alone?” I teased him.

“No, we can do this!” Vernon took in a deep breath of air and started walking ahead of me.

We walked for a few miles and my body was beginning to feel tired. Vernon had stopped complaining, but I wish he wouldn’t have so I would have a reason to complain with him. As much as I wanted to save Mingyu, I was getting tired and my body wasn’t going to hold up much longer.

“Let’s stop here for the night?” I stopped and Vernon looked at his watch.

“It’s 3 in the morning. It’s too late to say ‘night’, but sure we can stop!” he looked around at the corn field we were walking in. “Am I supposed to sleep on the floor?”

With the last bit of my energy, I summoned a large and hollowed-out tree. The inside was nothing special, wood flooring and two stumps for beds. Instead of a door, there were leaves keeping us concealed. I didn’t have time to take in my glorious summon; my body collapsed onto the floor and I was out cold.

“Wonwoo, it’s me: Professor Suarez. We heard about—can he hear me?—oh, we heard about your situation and I’m here to guide you.. for a few seconds, that is. We’ve sent out a back up team, but they probably won’t arrive for a while. WAIT FOR THEM! I’m going to transfer your mind into Mingyu’s perspective for a minute. Stay sleeping.”

My eyes open but I had no control of my body. The area around me seemed like an amusement park run by scientists. All around the room, manikins were wearing creepy masks and they were all aimed at me. I seemed to be held off the ground by something much bigger than me.

My vision shifted and I was walking around in a hallway. A hand opened the door and I entered the room where Mingyu was being held. Mingyu’s mouth moved but I couldn’t hear what he said. The giant rock gorilla held him by all fours, his body spreading out like an ‘X’. By the look on Mingyu’s face, I could tell he was in pain and was extremely tired. My vision moved forward, following the body I entered, and opened a draw containing syringes. A hand shuffled around until it found the one it was looking for. We turned around to face Mingyu and began walking forward.

“That’s all I can show you right now. Good luck, and please wait for back up. Do I need to yell at you once you return?” Professor Suarez’s voice filled my head and I woke up.

My energy had returned and I felt ready to get moving. Tiny rays of sunlight poked through the holes of the tree. I looked around at my creation; it wasn’t as glorious as I thought it was when I was tired. The walls were dry and the floor seemed to be crawling with termites. The leaves that were supposed to be acting as a door were no longer there. Instead, a pile of dead leaves sat on the floor, waiting to be stomped on.

Vernon was up before me and managed to make breakfast. By breakfast, I mean popcorn. In the middle of the hollowed-out tree, Vernon placed rocks into a circle and lit a fire to pop the corn. _He’s smarter than I thought he wa_ s. I rolled out of bed and sat next to him. He greeted me and I told him what Professor Suarez showed me. After breakfast, we waited for the back up team to show up.


	13. Chapter 13

The hollowed-out tree was more like a withering willow. Instead of staying a fully-grown tree, the branches began falling and the bark began dissolving, leaving a pile of dead shrubbery. In a perfect world, my summons would be 5-star. It wouldn’t just be a hollowed-out tree; it would be a hollowed-out island with trees as chimneys for a nice vacation. Sadly, this world isn’t perfect and this collapsed tree is proof of it.

Morning is supposed to be a peaceful time of day. It’s the time of day where you are allowed to wake up and have a drink of coffee _, man I miss coffee_ , and slowly awaken yourself for a hardworking day. Today, morning felt like I shouldn’t be sitting around and waiting. Despite the blue skies and the nice breeze, everything was NOT okay. How can the world still act normal while Mingyu is being held hostage?

“We’ll save him. Don’t worry, okay buddy?” Vernon’s hand met my shoulder. I looked over to him and smiled weakly.

“I know we will. I just want to know when. When is this rescue—” I was interrupted by the rustling in cornstalks in front of us.

The cornstalks bent awkwardly as three people pushed their way through the slight opening. Jun fell face first onto the floor, followed by Yoolhee tripping over him. Another girl walked around them, avoiding the embarrassing fall. She didn’t look at all familiar; in fact, does she even attend the institute of the talented? I’ve never seen her before.

The girl’s wavy hair fell down her shoulders and her skin was flawless. Her eyes reminded me of a rainforest, green with hard-to-see blue in the background. The outfit she was wearing was super casual: blue jeans with a blue t-shirt. She seemed to be older than the rest of us, but not by much.

“WATCH WHERE YOU STEP!” Yoolhee hit Jun on the back and stood on top of him. “Whew, it feels good to be out and about!”

“Can you get off of me? How do you deal with this child?” Jun did some sort of crocodile death-roll and stood on top of the small Yoolhee. “If Minghao were here, he’d squash you!”

“GET OFF OF ME YOU…. FIGHTER!” Yoolhee’s eyes gleamed yellow as she stared at Jun. His eyes reflected yellow back and he stepped off of her. “Hit yourself.” She commanded and Jun began smacking himself.

“Would you both cut it out? We need to go save Mingyu.” My expression was cold as I cut into the situation. Yoolhee apologized and released Jun from her control. “If you don’t mind me asking: Who exactly are you?” I politely asked the pretty girl.

“I’m Melissa, but call me ‘Meli’ please.” She bowed her head slightly. “I’m a junior at IOTT.” _What’s IOTT?_ “Shall we get moving?”

We all agreed and I told them about the visions Professor Suarez sent me. Nobody knew of any local haunted amusement parks so we ended up following the broken-down corn path that the rock gorilla made the night prior. After following it for a while, the corn field ended and it lead us to a large open field. Flowers were spread out in different groups, almost like high school cliques. In the middle of the field, a pile of broken rocks sat, forming a mini mountain. _That can’t be right. In my vision, Mingyu was being held by a rock gorilla at an amusement park. How did he get to the amusement park if the gorilla never made it?_

“Something isn’t right.” Meli made her way up to the mini mountain and looked at it for a while. _Did she read my mind or are we just on the same track?_ “This ‘mountain’ has a hidden enterance.” Her body became incredibly slim as her arms and legs tucked into her body. Scales formed on her skin and before I knew it, she had turned into a snake. She slithered into the pile of rocks and we waited for something to happen.

“Did she die?” Vernon asked as he crept forward with a defensive stature.

Out of nowhere, the pile of rocks exploded outwards and a T-Rex stood in its place. The eyes of the T-Rex were that of Meli. The massive creature shrunk down, lost its scales and became a human girl. Meli flipped her hair and gestured us over to her. On the ground, a wide cave tunnel shot downwards into complete darkness.

“Can we get some light? Vernon: spit?” I looked over to him and he nodded. He walked up to the hole and spit some fire into it. The flames fell straight down, revealing a large assortment of bugs as it passed. Spiders, roaches, snakes, termites and even skulls were citizens of the creepy walls. The flame hit the bottom of the horrifying cave, revealing a small glimpse of a metallic room.

“Do we have to go down there?” a terrified Vernon said and walked behind me.

“Meet you at the bottom!” Yoolhee’s eyes met Meli’s eyes and they turned a shade of yellow. Meli’s body began morphing into a spider with a saddle. Yoolhee jumped on top of the saddle and the spider jumped into the abyss. I shivered at the thought of riding a spider into a spider-infested cave.

“I don’t do well with critters. May the martial artist gods be with me.” Jun did a little prayer and became completely invisible; his presence completely erased.

“How do we get down?” Vernon sounded scared out of his mind.

I stared back into the abyss and only managed to see Yoolhee sitting on her spider throne. She wasn’t at all worried as an army of smaller spiders followed. I couldn’t see Jun but I knew he was either climbing down or already at the bottom.

The scenery around us didn’t seem at all helpful. We couldn’t take vines down; there were too many creatures roaming about. A flower elevator would be pleasant, but I don’t know how to manipulate a flower to that extent. Embarrassingly enough, I can barely manage to grow a rose. Though, I did summon a giant tree. On the other hand, it did die after a while. An idea finally came to me.

I willed a tiny river to begin trickling down into the cave. Soon enough, a decent size stream of water was falling into the hole. Before I could continue, I had to drink some of the water due to exhaustion from summoning something new. After refreshing myself, a massive leaf grew from inside the falling river.

“We’re riding that down?” Vernon gulped.

“Yup. I don’t know how safe it’ll be so be prepared to spit your mad tracks at anything that looks unfriendly.” I jumped onto the leaf and sat cross-legged. My eyes glanced over to Vernon, his legs shivering while he chewed his fingernails. “C’mon. I’ll protect you, okay?” I pat the leaf and he hopped on.

He sat behind me and held me from behind. His grip was incredibly tight, causing my breath to shorten.

“Vernon,” I gasped for air. “May I breathe?”

“No.” he didn’t let go.

“Vernon!” I gently smacked his hands and he loosened slightly, enough to allow me to breathe. “Hold on, tight.” I regretted saying as he reclaimed his tight grip. The leaf-boat snapped from the ground below and began drifting down the river. The fall ride down was traumatizing. At some points of the fall, we were upside down while our boat rode us. The only thing the water did was prevent things from jumping out at us. However, it didn’t prevent the skulls from giving us a death stare.

Just before we landed on the metallic floor, our leaf-boat realized its job and flipped us over, right side up. The landing was quite soft as we floated on the now-flooding room. The room was completely dark and I could barely make out Meli and Yoolhee standing against the corner of the room.

“You killed our spider army!” Yoolhee complained and Meli shrugged. “They all drowned. We could have used them for a fight.”

“Why don’t you join your roach friends up there?” I pointed into the cave that was now complimented with a nice river.

“Hilarious, Wonwoo. Why don’t you do your little tricks and light the room up, yeah?” She crossed her arms.

I knew what she meant when she said ‘little tricks’. Back when Professor Suarez tricked us into believing that Aubrey placed us into a zombie apocalypse, I summoned a swarm of fireflies to light up the laboratory we were in. The only issue with that was the fact that my first attempt ended up with me summoning a regular fly.

I concentrated and a swarm of something flew out of my hands. A sound filled my ears and I realized my mistake. While thinking of what to summon, my mind transferred back to that horrible zombie apocalypse flashback. I remembered me summoning a fly and Yoolhee making a comment about the possibility of it being a bee. Well, now it is a bee. A swarm of bees. This is your fault, Yoolhee.

“FIREFLIES, NOT BEES! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” everybody’s arms began flailing as we attempted to not get stung.

“I’ll be right back.” Meli said. I turned her direction and she was gone. Shortly after, the swarm of bees flew up the cave and out of the metallic room. I walked over to the opening to get a better view. At the top of the cave, the bees followed a larger bee. I assume that’s Meli as a queen bee. Once she reached the top, her appearance changed into a Vernon—I mean a dragon—and the sky lit up with a blaze. Meli transformed into a swordfish and dived down into the river, landing gently next to me.

“You’re amazing.” I complimented her.

“Thanks. You’re sweet.” She transformed back into her gorgeous self.

“I’ll do the lights this time.” Vernon volunteered and it hit me that he was obviously a better light source than I was. His mouth grew full as he spit lava onto the flooding floor. For a split second, the room lit up and a door was visible on the opposite side of where we stood.

“Let’s play smart. Wonwoo, conjure up a stick or something and have Vernon light it to make a torch.” Yoolhee suggested.

From our leaf-boat, I grew a wooden stem and snapped it off. Vernon spit a flame on the top of the stick and we passed a few torches around.

“Where’s Jun?” I finally realized the martial artist was missing.

“I’m right here.” Jun’s voice came from the doorway of the door. “I was just checking the place out. It seems to be a labyrinth.” We all sighed. “Just kidding, but there are a lot of rooms.”

“Alright. Here’s our mission: Save Mingyu.” I said and we walked out of the flooding room into a hallway with many doors.


	14. Chapter 14

“Which way?” I looked at the long hallway with doors all along one side of it.

“Only one way to find out.” Jun walked up to one of the doors and opened it. As the door opened, arrows shot at Jun. Luckily, Jun was slightly prepared for something bad to happen and did some quick slicing action before he could sustain any real harm. The worst of the damage was an arrow through his shoulder; it could have been worse. “Alright, let’s not open random doors.” He broke the shaft of the arrow and started healing himself.

“How are we going to know which door to enter if all of them are booty trapped?” Vernon misspoke.

“Did you just say ‘booty trapped’?” Meli giggled.

“What? Is that not what it’s called?” Vernon looked around in confusion.

“It’s called ‘Booby Trapped’ not ‘Booty Trapped’.” Yoolhee corrected. “Any suggestions on how to approach this?”

 An idea came to mind, but it wasn’t a very good idea. I started explaining my idea to them. Back at the zombie apocalypse, I had to face off an entire army of armored zombies, alone. The only way I beat them was with the help of trees I sprung life into. Maybe I could do something similar to that time and have them open the doors for us, taking whatever punishment that comes with opening the door. The group seemed to have no better ideas so nobody objected.

Jun volunteered to pass me some strength so I wouldn’t pass out from my restrictions. The rest of the group went back into the flooding room and waited for us to finish. Odds are, they were safer in there than they would be out here. Who knows what will come out of these doors?

“One door at a time or should I just open them all at the same time?” I asked Jun as he placed his hands on my back.

“Go big or go home.” Jun prepared for the worst.

At the base of each door, a small sprout began growing up to the handle of the door. This action took about half of my energy but I couldn’t stop there. Jun was breathing heavily. I looked back at his direction and saw his arrow wound re-open.

“Are you alright?” My breathing was becoming harsher as the sprouts got thicker.

“Doing great,” he smirked. “Make it quick, alright?” Jun closed his eyes and embraced himself for the worst.

My attention went back onto the growing sprouts as they wrapped around the handles of each door. Slowly, each door handle began turning right and eventually all of the doors opened. As the doors opened, each door had a different punishment for opening. Some doors were armed with little bombs while others were infested with swarms of wasps. All around, chaos struck. Different species of animals began fighting each other; wolves ganged up on lions, wasps swarmed giant cobras.

Smoke filled the halls and fires raged on both sides. I felt Jun collapse onto the floor behind me and instantly, my energy deprived itself. I collapsed to my knees as the door in front of me opened. Just before I passed out, I saw a flash of light escape the room. _This is it, this is where I die._

 

“Wonwoo, drink some water.” My eyes opened to see Yoolhee sit me up and pass me a cup of water. _Where did she get a cup from?_

I didn’t object; my throat was raging with dryness. Quickly, I chugged the water down and tossed the cup onto the floor.

“OwW!” The cup squealed. What little attention I had left transferred over to the cup. It grew in size and took form of a girl. _Did I just drink from Melissa?_ “Next time, be careful! I’m very delicate.” She brushed her shoulders off.

My energy began restoring itself and I remembered where I was. The hallway was a complete and utter disaster. At one end of the hall, the entire roof collapsed, leaving a load of rubble in its place. The other end of the hall, Vernon stood guard as wild beasts attempted proving their dominance. As they got closer, Vernon spit fire onto the floor, forcing them to keep a distance. By the looks of it, Jun was feeling better already. He was standing up and stretching his recovering body.

I glanced over to the open door in front of us. Inside, a light bulb hung from the ceiling and a staircase lead down. _Was I really afraid of a light bulb?_

“We probably should have started with the door directly in front of us.” Yoolhee said. “C’mon Vernon, we’re going to close the door.” The five of us entered the mysterious room and closed the door behind us before the animals could get in.

The way down seemed familiar, like I had been there before. Once we reaching the ground level, three separate hallways split into different directions.

“Great, just great! Which way is it this time?” Yoolhee threw a fit.

I looked over to the opening to the right. Something told me it was that way. I started making my way through it and the group followed. The scenery was all too familiar. This was definitely one of the visions Professor Suarez had allowed me to view. My instincts took over and I walked down the hallway and opened the door on the left, leading into the room where Mingyu was being held.

Inside, manikins were all facing Mingyu while he was being held by all fours in a ‘X’ position by an inactivated rock gorilla. Mingyu seemed to be out cold. Something seemed different about him; His arm was wrapped with gauze. My eyes turned over to the desk containing syringes and I opened the drawer. The drawer was completely empty; no syringe in sight.

“Wonwoo, help us get him down from here.” Yoolhee called me over.

The massive structure of a gorilla didn’t seem to want to let Mingyu go. As we tried prying its fingers open, the gorilla’s head cracked and its limbs started to move. We all stepped back as the massive rock gorilla moved Mingyu into his mouth, swallowing him whole.

“ _If you want to save him, you have to destroy this body._ ” The massive creature banged on its chest and roared. Immediately, the gorilla smacked Jun into the wall behind us, rendering him unconscious.

Right after, Meli turned into a massive T-Rex and slammed into the belly of the beast. Its chest began to crack and fragments of Mingyu began to show. The gorilla stumbled backwards but Meli kept striking it without hesitation.

“Don’t hurt Mingyu!” I hollered to the T-Rex and restricted it by the ankles with some thorn bushes, causing Meli to trip and fall. She morphed back into herself and was unable to move due to the thorns wrapped around her legs.

“What was that for?” Meli tried freeing herself from the entanglement.

“You almost hurt Mingyu!”

“I can’t get out of this. It’s just the three of you now. Hopefully you don’t sabotage your own team.” Meli’s body turned an extremely dark shade of purple and she crouched down. Her body reminded me of obsidian. _Is she somehow related to Minghao?_

“Vernon: Try melting its feet to the ground. Wonwoo: Constrict its arms.” Yoolhee stood back and gave orders.

Vernon’s mouth puffed up as he spit out pure lava onto the beast’s feat. As the air had time to settle in, the lava began solidifying around its feet. Before it did, the gorilla’s rock feet began melting into the lava, rendering it unable to move. To stop it from freeing itself, I summoned palm trees to entangle its arms from moving around. _Really, palm trees?_ It seemed to work, though. The rock gorilla stood in place, unable to move.

“We did it, now we just have to free Mingyu.” I spoke too soon.

“Let go of me! Whose side are you on?” Yoolhee cried out for help. I turned to her and saw Meli holding Yoolhee with a blade, made from her own body, to her neck. Meli’s body was completely made of obsidian; there was no breaking free from her.

“Meli let her go. What are you doing?” I attempted walking towards her but her blade nudged closer to Yoolhee’s neck.

“ _Melissa isn’t here right now. I possess the earth; she made the mistake of transforming into it._ ” The voice of the rock ghost came from Meli’s obsidian mouth.

The sound of branches snapping behind me startled me. A giant rock hand wrapped around me and lifted me off of the ground. Vernon was stuck in its other hand. I glanced over to him as we tried wiggling our way to freedom but the gorilla’s grip was too tight.

In the background, Jun was beginning to reawaken. With my peripherals, I watched him assess the situation and go into stealth mode. I didn’t have to see him to know what he was planning. Something great about being a martial artist: when training, you start by breaking pieces of wood. Jun wasn’t in training; he might as well be a legendary martial artist. He could probably smash through cement. This gorilla wasn’t going to last much longer.

“ _Don’t fight it. I just want to talk._ ”


	15. Chapter 15

“You want to talk? Then talk.” I averted my attention to Meli’s possessed body.

“ _I’m giving you one chance to leave the school, for your own safety._ ” A face in the wall formed and spoke instead of Meli’s obsidian body. “ _You aren’t my target._ ”

“Leave the school? Why?” I decided to get comfy in the gorilla’s palm.

“ _Your principal is evil. Under her rule, the school is an institute of evil._ ” Said the evil guy who is holding six people captive.

“Principle Nguyen, evil? That’s hysterical! You’re the only evil.” A cocky Yoolhee spoke, despite being at knifepoint.

“ _Shut up, you brat!_ ” Meli’s body gripped onto Yoolhee a bit tighter. “ _Please, Wonwoo. I don’t want you getting hurt._ ”

“You don’t want me to get hurt? You don’t even know me!” My frustration began to build.

“ _You’re right, I don’t know you. I’d like to know you, though. I wasn’t there for you during your childhood, but I can change. I can be a better father. Just don’t attend the school anymore, please. I beg you._ ” The face on the wall had a desperate look on its face.

“This is your father?” Vernon looked over like he was watching a drama unfold. The face didn’t like his interruption and forced the gorilla to tighten its grip on Vernon.

The conversation I had with my mother just before I went to orientation came flooding back into my memory. At the time, I hadn’t believed her claim of his possible return. However, I also didn’t believe Principal Nguyen’s claim of me having superpowers and look how that turned out. Now that my father is alive, apparently, all I can feel is anger. How dare a man leave a mother and son? I know my mother didn’t want me speaking poorly of him, but this is all I can do.

“I’ll never leave the institute. Unlike you, the institute has taken care of me and loved me. Above all, it’s kept me away from the path of evil. So, no, father, I will NOT be leaving the institute.” I looked straight into the earth’s face.

“ _Then you will all die down here and I will declare war on the institute. Goodbye._ ” The earth all around us began to shake. Shards of the roof began collapsing all around us. Soon, the entire top layer of earth would collapse on top of us.

The gorilla’s grip tightened around me and Vernon. I glanced over to Vernon, who was now turn blue and leaning forward. At the same time, Meli’s blade-of-a-hand raised over Yoolhee’s head in a swiping manner. Her arm, with amazing speed, swung over to Yoolhee’s neck. Just before it made contact, Jun appeared and performed some sort of technique that shattered Melissa’s entire arm.

Out of rage, my body grew vines into the body of the gorilla, making their way throughout its entire body. I could feel the life of the vines, almost as if they were my veins. I glanced over, one last time, to a dying Vernon and let out a roar. Spikes shot out of the vines coursing through the gorilla’s body, breaking the beast into a massive pile of smaller rocks. Vernon fell to the ground and lay motionless. My leg seemed to be numb as I limped over to an unconscious Vernon.

The color in Vernon’s face slowly returned and he opened his eyes. His immediate reaction was to take a big breath of air and ask for a banana. Slowly, he realized where we were and what was happening, though he couldn’t really move.

Jun was having an easier time than I was. Meli’s body was now a pile of broken obsidian, sadly. Yoolhee was finally safe of anything sharp near her neck and they both ran over to help. We, excluding Vernon, all pitched in on moving around the rocks in search of Mingyu. After a minute of looking, Jun managed to find him and pulled him out of the rubble by his arm. The sight of Mingyu made my heart ache. Seeing his dusty face and his wrapped up arm really made me realize how much of a jerk I was. When Professor Alexander’s powers went all willy-nilly and DK asked me whose eyes I saw in pink, I should have just confessed. I shouldn’t have been afraid of anybody’s reactions. A tear ran down the side of my face and landed on Mingyu’s cheek.

“We need to get out of here!” Yoolhee tapped my shoulder and heavily coughed. All around, the walls were falling apart, revealing rock. The whole place was filling up with a thickening cloud of dust, making it harder and harder to breathe.

I picked Mingyu up like a baby and limped through the door we came from. Jun and Yoolhee helped carry Vernon as they followed. As we were leaving, the pile of rocks from the gorilla and the pile of obsidian from Meli started reforming. _Maybe there is a chance that Melissa can still be alive._ Going back the way we came was much more difficult due to pieces of the ceiling falling, dust preventing our vision, and the fact that we were incredibly tired from being beaten up by my father.

We made it to the stairs with the single light bulb and opened the door at the top. Today was not our day; upon opening the door, we were greeted by the booby trap animals who were very upset that we didn’t stay around to play with them. An angry wolf lunged at me and clawed at my stomach. It wasn’t long before a lion came to the rescue, tackling the wolf off of me. I stood up and clutched my burning stomach, afraid to look at the damage.

Yoolhee, Vernon, and Jun mounted the lion as we entered the flooded room. Water escaped into the hallway and we forced our way into the room. The lion must have been enchanted with some sort of steroids because it managed to hold three people, swim against a current and jump up and out of the cave. Maybe it didn’t happen as quickly as I thought it did, I’m probably slowing down.

Despite being injured, I managed to carry a knocked out Mingyu and swim into a flooded room with a river flowing into it. Directly where the hole opened up, a small ray of sunlight reflected off of the surface of the water. I swam to it and looked up into the sky. The cave tunnel we fell down was gradually closing up. At the top of the tunnel, the silhouette of Yoolhee raising her hands in the air was the only thing I managed to make out before the tunnel completely shut, leaving me and Mingyu stuck in a flooded room without an escape.

_eeeee…_

_What’s that?_

_eeeeeEEEEE…._

With whatever strength I had left, I raised Mingyu’s head above the water so he wouldn’t drown while I stayed under.

_eeeeeEEEEEEAAAAAAHHH!_

The spot where the cave originally opened was beginning to crumble. Out of fear the world was imploding, I swiftly swam to the side with Mingyu in hand. The roof collapsed into the water, causing the river to flow back down. I glanced back up at the now revealed sky and saw three more silhouettes standing with Yoolhee. A long body stretched down to us, revealing a fluffy Woozi who wrapped around us and pulled us up to the surface.

The sunlight immediately made me feel better, not completely, but better than dying. At the top of the hell-hole, a small medical tent was set up. Inside, Megan treated Vernon. Jun fed the hungry lion that seemed to be friendly. Megan ran out of the tent and took Mingyu out of my hands. Everything happened at such an intense speed.

Before I knew it, Jun was tearing my shirt off and laying me on the floor. His hands met my stomach, which was now beginning to burn. My eyes met my stomach to see giant claw marks slowly closing from Jun’s medical technique. DK brought over a cup of water and I sipped from it. I assume he was the “eeeee” sound that broke the floor. His cheesy and large smile made me feel a tad bit better of our sad predicament.

“Professor Suarez wants to talk to you.” Woozi’s hands extended out onto my forehead.

“ _Is everybody okay? Hello? Wonwoo?_ ” Professor Suarez sounded like he was talking into a microphone that he wasn’t sure was working correctly.

“No, we are not okay. Turns out my father is an evil psychopath who wants to declare war on the institute.” I said out loud and the newer members stopped what they were doing and listened in. “I think Meli went rogue, she almost killed Yoolhee! Nice selection of a rescue team, by the way.”

“She didn’t go rogue. She turned into obsidian, unknowing the villain could control anything from the earth.” Yoolhee defended her, despite being at knifepoint from Meli.

“Well, either way she is dead. Jun shattered her into pieces.” I pointed out the facts.

“As we were leaving, the pieces were forming back together; there is a chance she is still alive and under his control.” Yoolhee corrected.

“ _Alright, let me see if I got this correct: Your father kidnapped Mingyu, randomly, and almost killed the six of you, perhaps he might have killed one, with his ability to control aspects of the Earth. And now he has declared war on the institute._ ”

“As crazy as it sounds, yes.” I could feel my energy reviving due to Jun’s healing.

“ _Did he specify why?_ ”

“He mentioned something about Principal Nguyen,” I paused and thought about what I should reveal. What if my father was right about Principal Nguyen being evil? “Something about him not liking her.” Jun and Yoolhee both looked at me because of the lie I told, but decided not to say anything.

“ _Alright. Come back quickly, we have to prepare for war. Tell the group they have until nightfall to be back. We must teach every student at this school about your father’s power._ ”

Woozi took his hands back and went back to assisting Megan. After everyone had enough energy to move around, we packed up everything and began our trip back to the institution. The field that used to be filled with different cliques of flowers was now desolated and baron. I’m surprised I hadn’t realized it sooner.

We passed through the corn field and I saw my used-to-be-tree lying on the floor. Soon, we were back in the city. None of the citizens seemed to notice our ripped and dirty clothes, or maybe they didn’t care. The sun was setting was we arrived at the school. Upon arrival, our lunch crew, the ones who weren’t already with me, greeted us at the door.

“Everybody inside.” The Principal broke up our little reunion.

As I was walking in, we made eye contact and something told me that my father might have been right about Principal Nguyen.


	16. Chapter 16

The atmosphere at the ‘Institution of the Talented’ had a sudden change. No longer was the private institution so ‘friendly’ or ‘supportive’. The professor’s faces were stern and looked as if they were planning on giving everyone detention. Even the students had a different feel to them. Now, there could be a few possibilities as to why this has come to happen. The first being: everyone is evil and they’re secretly planning on turning the human population into a factory of slaves. Though, that theory seems unlikely, or so I hope. My second theory: My father implanted rocks into their mind and turned them into his evil slaves that plan on turning the human population into a factory of slaves. Alright, I might be a bit paranoid. In reality, everyone is just stressing over the fact that a war could break out at any given moment, causing the city to flip out due to our super human abilities.

As soon as we entered the school grounds, instead of going back to our dorms and resting, Jeonghan insisted we see him at the infirmary for a thorough check. The unnatural lighting in the infirmary made it much clearer to see everybody’s injuries. Yoolhee’s hair was somehow cut to her shoulders, giving her a new look, which I liked more than her previous look. Her face was proud, but I could feel her sadness. She was definitely holding something back. Maybe the few weeks at the institute and being in her group really made us bond more than I thought. _Eww…_

Jun had dust all over his body, I’m not exaggerating. Jeonghan made him strip down because there seemed to be no end it. It’s strange how he had dust on him, considering he rode on a lion that jumped through a river and landed on top of the surface. On the bright side, Jun had fully healed his wounds. He even impressed Jeonghan. Has Jun never healed in front of others before?

“Wonwoo,” Mingyu nudged the side of my stomach and made me jump. Jeonghan glanced over to me and assured that he would get to me as soon as possible. I smiled weakly and glanced over to an adorable Mingyu. “You saved me.” He hugged me and we both cringed from pain.

“I’ll always save you.” I hugged him and embraced the pain.

“I shouldn’t have to be saved. I’d prefer it if I saved you.” His arms held onto my waist as his head rested on my hair.

“How about we save other people?” I suggested, making us both laugh in pain.

“Alright, Wonwoo. I’m here to save the day.” Jeonghan panted over to me and put on rubber gloves. After inspecting my body, he found that a few of my ribs had broken, the slashes from the wolf hadn’t completely healed (Jun can apparently heal himself just fine, but when he tries it on others it’s like “What? How do you use this ugly contraption?” I’ll remember that, Jun.), apparently my hair had caught fire and nobody told me, I had pneumonia yet I was completely dehydrated, and my skin was shriveled in places it shouldn’t be. Wow, I’m a mess. “You had better spend the night here, Wonwoo. You are unstable at the moment. If Jun hadn’t done attempted to heal you sooner, you would probably be dead.” _Never mind, Jun. You did a great job healing me…_ “Go rest one of the mats. Your turn, Mingyu.”

The mat felt amazing, especially considering the fact that I slept on a termite infested log the night before. The pillow on top was just the right temperature, cold with a hint of fire. I settled in the cot and looked over to Jeonghan diagnosing Mingyu. Over hearing their conversation, I found out Mingyu developed a case of bronchitis (Dang it, father. You want to be a part of my life yet you harm the boy I have feelings for? Not cool.), and he was also dehydrated. _Did I seriously have worse conditions than he did?_ Just before Mingyu was told to find a cot, Vernon was placed on the bed next to me, forcing Mingyu to take the cot next to Vernon. _Dang it, Vernon._

“Hey, Wonwoo. Thanks for bringing me on an adventure; that was fun!” A broken Vernon said. Apparently, both of his legs were broken, his lungs had been popped, his throat was scorched and he had a double ear infection. Here I thought I had it bad.

“I’m sorry about everything that went wrong. Thanks for helping me save Mingyu.” I couldn’t be mad at him, despite him being in between me and Mingyu.

For a few hours, our group came to visit us and we talked about how cool our adventure had been. Vernon did the most bragging; he went on and on about how his fire melted stone. Strangely enough, he even bragged about me helping him down a scary cave. Since he was so nice and praised me like the king I am, I didn’t mention the fact that he cried like a baby while we fell down. After a while, Jeonghan sent them back to their rooms so we could rest. He put the lights off and promised he would come in to check on us every two hours. Time passed as the three of us slept. It felt nice knowing that I was at a safe place, with trustworthy people. Well, somewhat safe and somewhat trustworthy people.

_CreeeaaaAAAAKK!_

My eyes shot open as I looked around the room. The door to the infirmary was opened ever so slightly, just allowing a small ray of light in from the hallway. I scanned the room slowly, looking at the medical supplies all around the room. The atmosphere was comfortable, almost as if we didn’t have classes in the morning. I glanced over to a sleeping Vernon and Mingyu. They looked so peaceful while they slept.

“Time to check your vitals.” Jeonghan stood next to me, scaring the living days out of me. My heart pounded heavily against my chest as I rolled onto the floor. Jeonghan’s hair was long and angelic, just like his smile.

“You scared me! I almost died!” My hand found the cot and I pushed myself back into bed.

“Sorry, buddy!” Jeonghan pulled out a full syringe. The sight of that unholy weapon forced me to look away. My eyes darted passed the empty bed next to me and onto Mingyu. The atmosphere in the room changed as I stared at the back of Mingyu’s head. Jeonghan poked me with the syringe and I flinched.

Mingyu’s hair slowly began falling out, strand by strand. The blanket covering him started deflating, almost as if Mingyu was becoming a rotting corpse.

“Jeonghan, Mingyu is in trouble!” Quickly, my head turned over to the direction of Jeonghan. Instead of Jeonghan being there, a rock ghost was injecting me with a syringe. Before I could scream for help, the rock ghost gagged me with a rag and chloroform. Slowly, my vision began fading as I watched the rock ghost’s face morph into Meli.

“Wonwoo,” I heard a voice call out my name. “Wake up! Megan, pass me the gas mask!” Something wrapped around my face and oxygen flooded into my lungs. My eyes shot open and I sat up straight, hyperventilating. All over me, tubes went in and out of my body. I looked like a giant science experiment. To my sides, Jeonghan and Megan tried to calm me down.

In the corner of the room, Mingyu stood and watched me with concern on his face. The sight of him instantly made me feel better. It didn’t matter where I was, so long as he was with me. After realizing it was all just a nightmare, I quickly calmed down and let the doctors do their check up. Their inspection wasn’t long, though I’m not sure exactly how long they were trying to wake me up, and they left soon after.

“Did you have a nightmare?” Mingyu walked over to my bed and sat near my feet. “Tell me about it.”

I told him about how realistic it was. How I was woken up by a creak of the door and scared by a teleporting Jeonghan. The scariest parts of the dream were when I forgot about Vernon and when Mingyu was becoming skeletal. Of course, the rock ghost/ Meli thing was terrifying, but losing my best friend and my.. boyfriend.. was even worse.

“Well, I don’t know who this ‘Melissa’ is but I don’t like her.” Mingyu smiled at me.

“She isn’t evil. She just accidently turned into obsidian without knowing that the villain could control the earth. That’s not her fault.” I made sure he wouldn’t her. I glanced over to his that was wrapped up at the elbow. “What did my father do to you?”

His expression hardened as I asked the question. I could tell that he didn’t want to talk about it, but I wanted to know. I placed my hand on his shoulder and sat up right, next to him.

“I don’t know all the details.. but he took some of my blood with the syringes he had. He had like thirty syringes, it was crazy. After the tenth, or so, syringe, I passed out due to blood loss.” He removed the bandaging from his arm, revealing a large group of needle points. The sight of it made my stomach feel uneasy and I looked away. “Sorry, you didn’t ask for a demonstration of what he did.. just an explanation.”

“It’s okay. I’m glad you showed me. Now it will give me a reason to bring him down.” I looked into Mingyu’s eyes until I was interrupted by a bucket of water spilling onto our heads.

“I forgot to water my precious garden fairy.” Jeonghan smiled and then glanced over to Mingyu. “Well, you needed a bath anyways.” He put the lights off and left the infirmary.

The water soaked into my skin, making it feel smooth and full of life. I knew my restriction made me dehydrated, but I didn’t realize that it would take the water out of my skin. I thought the shriveled skin was from a burn or something. Who knew my body took on the restrictions of an actual plant? Wait, does that mean I will burn like one too?

“I am going to go to sleep now; I hear we have a mandatory assembly in the morning.” Mingyu stood up and walked over to his cot.

“About what?” I moved my wet blanket over me. For some reason, I enjoyed the wetness.

“Something about training? Or maybe a strategy? I am not one-hundred percent sure. Principal Nguyen doesn’t speak that loudly.” Mingyu crawled into bed and began snoring. _Man, he falls asleep quickly._

If we are having an assembly in the morning, does that mean the war will start soon? If this war does start, what would we even be fighting for? The school? What if Principal Nguyen has alternative motives and we are just defending her? These are things I have to know before the war begins.


	17. Chapter 17

“Quiet down please,” The crowd talked over the principal. “Everyone: SHUT UP!” The principal caught everybody’s attention. “Whew, sorry. Sometimes I get a little crazy. Anyways, we are here to discuss the recent events leading to Melissa’s disappearance. Also, someone has declared war on us. Therefore, all of your classes will be.. changed. Expect tomfoolery to be punished; until the war begins, you are to train like your life depends on it. Let me just say: Your life DOES depend on this.” The atmosphere in the auditorium felt eerie.

 S.coups walked up to the stage and introduced himself to those who didn’t know him. Yoolhee, Megan and Jun followed behind. Apparently, S.coups would be the leader of the entire operation.

“Hi, everybody. I’m Megan and I am the leader of the Medical Unit.” The bright-colored haired, preppy girl said.

“I’m the leader of the Intelligence Unit,” Yoolhee said. “Oh, I’m Yoolhee. If you didn’t already know.” She flipped her short hair.

“I’m Jun, Minghao’s boyfriend.” He walked back and realized he introduced himself incorrectly. In the audience, Minghao stood up and blew a giant kiss to him. “Oops!” his hand found his hair as he smiled weakly. “I’m the leader of the Martial Arts Unit.”

“Each of you will be assigned into your respected group. All of you will be required to learn a form of martial arts, but not all of you will fight. This is just a safety precaution.” S.coups said reassuringly. “Please don’t get upset once you are in your respected group. Your group was selected based on your power and its potential.”

Principal Nguyen’s eyes went pink as pieces of papers floated in the air. Each student in the auditorium received an envelope with their name written on it. As soon as we were given permission, students began opening the envelopes like they were Christmas presents. I opened mine slowly, hoping to be on the Martial Arts Unit. The paper on the inside was blank. I flipped it over to the other side but there was nothing on the paper. Mingyu looked just as confused as I did as he flipped his paper over and saw nothing written on it. Vernon on the other hand was blessed with the Martial Arts Unit.

“For those of you with the blank paper, you get to decide which unit you want to be apart. Don’t decide right now; you still have to be trained in each category. Pick your favorite when the day comes.” S.coups calmed those students with blank papers. “Please attend your first classes now.”

. . .

“I feel so much better now that my husband, J-hope, took care of me!” Professor Alexander fixed her glasses and blushed. “This course has changed.. just a little bit.” She giggled weakly. “‘Restrictions’ has become ‘Finding an opponent’s restrictions and using them against them!’”

“That sure is a long name.” Dino raised his hand.

“It sure is! Came up with it myself.” She flipped her curly hair. “Dino, would you like to be my volunteer? I bet I can find your restriction and use it against you!”

“NO! YOU DID THAT ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!” Dino ran to the back of the classroom and his behind some of the other students.

“Oh that’s right, and you bled on my floor!” Professor Alexander threw a pencil in his direction but Dino jumped out of the classroom window. “Forget it, I won’t use a volunteer. I will just explain it to you and you can go to your next class.” She sighed.

Professor Alexander explained that to find an opponent’s weakness, we must first let them use their power on us. She specified that we didn’t have to take damage from their power; we just needed to see what it was. Once we determined what their power was, we had to use logic. Apparently, super power restrictions usually matched their power. Someone with fire abilities would probably get dehydrated really quickly, _Vernon_. Someone who was very quick would get hungry and tired extremely fast, _Hoshi_. In this case, someone who controlled aspects of the earth would have a hard time lifting it all, _father_. Once you have discovered the power and restriction, it was time to use it against them. In Vernon’s and Hoshi’s case, after a while they would be too exhausted to continue using their power. For my father, however, he would just be incredibly slow and maybe encumbered.

After class was over, Vernon walked me to my second class. Jeonghan seemed to do a good job at healing us last night, despite his weird methods of dumping water onto shriveled skin. Vernon could now walk, despite both of his legs being broken less than twenty-four hours ago. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have never guessed that Vernon was ever injured. Jeonghan truly is an angel.

. . .

“Alright, everybody. For today’s assignment, I want you to find a partner.” Professor Suarez waited for everybody to find a partner. Immediately, I stood up and lunged at DK before anyone could steal him. Despite him making the moves on me and Mingyu the night before Mingyu was kidnapped, he was still the only student I actually knew in that class. Everybody else looked incredibly frightening, like their parents might have raised them in a prison. “I hope you chose well because you will be fighting this person until they are knocked out. We’ll be doing this tournament style. Want to hear the best part? This is a school tournament. Win four matched and you will be invited to be in the special unit. If you want to know what the special unit does, you have to win.”

“May we switch partners?” DK raised his hand and looked at me with saddened eyes. _Was he sad because he was going to lose?_

“Nope. Unless you would prefer to fight me, then by all means—”

“I’m kidding!” DK’s smile was fake.

The professor explained to us the rules; they were actually quite simple. One, the first one to pass out loses. Two, don’t hold back because it will all be a vision so damages to the school will not happen. Three, since it is a vision, you won’t feel pain so make sure to keep track of your body. Seems simple enough to me.

“The first match will be between Dokyeom and Wonwoo.” The professor’s face turned to my direction. “May the best one win.”

_Sometimes I forget that he is actually blind._

All of the students made their way to the stands and took their seats. DK stood approximately two feet away from me. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how to start a fight with a friend. Especially a friend that technically helped save my life. Now that I think about it, his scream is pretty loud. His voice is powerful enough to break a hole into the Earth, and now I have to fight him. I turned to DK who seemed to be just as confused as I was. Suddenly, DK’s expression changed and he let out a screech that sent me flying across the gym.

The sound of DK’s shrill screech left a ringing in my ear. My vision went blurry from either the impact or my unstable eardrums. I stood up, regained my balance and glanced over to DK who was preparing another shout. Instead of standing there and allowing him to scramble my brains, I decided to make things a little bit interesting.

Trees of all kinds sprouted from the flooring of the gym, rising through the roof. Blades of grass followed and soon, it was hard to see. The environment all around us was that of a forest.

_BOOOOOOM!_

The sound made my ears hurt and I ducked in cover as a few trees exploded from the loud sound. Shards of broken tree fell on top of me as I hid behind a tree.

_Is he out to kill me? How do I stop someone with this insane of an ability?_

“Wonwoo, where are you?” I could barely make out what he was saying due to the damage he dealt on my ears. His footsteps pressed down onto the grass and I managed to pinpoint his location. My breathing became heavy as I tried calming down. As I had time to process the situation, my throat had time to dry out and I became dehydrated. If I didn’t act quickly, I was going to pass out from dehydration.

_Think, a river would be too obvious and DK would find me quickly. What would Yoolhee tell me to do?_

_Rain_

All of a sudden, a large amount of rain began falling down from the leaves of the trees. The water droplets were cold and refreshing. However, it blocked out the sound of DK’s location. Now that I was refreshed and ready to go, I moved away from the tree I was hiding behind and tried looking for DK. All around, water fell to the ground adding fog into the midst.

_BOOOOOM!_

A tree almost collapsed on top of me but I jumped out of the way just in time. _Can he see me, despite the rain and fog?_ Every now and then, a tree would fly by and I’d either jump out of the way or impale it with roots before it could land. Eventually, I was getting tired and my skin was beginning to shrivel despite being deep within a fake rainforest. The only thing I was missing was sunlight. The only place I could get that was up above the trees. Instead of climbing the trees like an idiot, I grew a new tree and stood on top of it while it sprouted to the top of the gym’s roof. Immediately, the skin absorbed the sunlight, refreshing me completely.

“I knew you would come up here eventually.” The sound of DK’s voice came from behind me. I turned to his direction and was blasted by one of his shrieks causing me to fly to the edge of the roof. I looked down at the ground floor and saw how painful it would be to hit it, even with a rosebush to catch my fall. _Sorry, Mingyu._ My eyes focused back on the real threat, DK, who was walking along the tops of the trees like it was sturdy flooring for him. _Since we’re playing dirty…_

The tree he walked on collapsed under his weight, mysteriously. By mysteriously, I mean I made sure that tree would end up like the one I summoned on the first night of operation-save-Mingyu. Along with the tree, DK fell about fifty feet onto the gym/forest floor. Quickly, I ran over to the opening and looked down to see his passed-out body. _How was Professor Suarez supposed to know when one of us was knocked out? I mean, there is a giant rainforest encasing us._

As I thought that, I blinked and my eyes opened up to a non-decimated gym. The professor stood at the center of the gym while everybody sat at their seats.

“What a marvelous battle, right class?” The entire class cheered and DK sank in his chair. “Wonwoo, you will be moving on to your second match tomorrow. Remember, this is a school event, so your opponent doesn’t have to be in this class. Be prepared for anything.”


	18. Chapter 18

“You beat DK?

“DK lost?”

“What kind of world are we living in?” My ‘friends’ ‘congratulated’ me.

“Guys, he won fair and square.” DK defended me from the angry mob of confused ‘friends’. “It was my fault for tripping.”

The table enraged with outrage. Joshua manipulated his voice into a siren and pretended to arrest me. Seungkwan literally flipped the table over, _goodbye delicious lunch that I’ll never finish_. Everybody had seemed to have lost their minds. The only normal people at the table were me, Mingyu and Vernon. Mingyu was happy that I won while Vernon was just a cheerful roommate.

“You cheated, right, Wonwoo?” Minghao hopped off of Jun’s lap and confronted me while standing on the flipped table.

“If by cheat, you mean I made the tree he was walking on collapse, the yes: I cheated.” I admit, I sounded a bit grumpy. _How can anybody be nice when your food was flipped onto the floor and your so-called ‘friends’ don’t support your victory?_ “Why are you guys so upset that I won?” I finally built up enough courage to ask the one-hundred dollar question.

“We’re not actually mad at you; we’re mad they stuck DK into the intelligence unit! He’ll get us all killed!” Hoshi cried and ran across the cafeteria, accidently slamming into the wall.

“Wait, is that why you guys were so upset that I lost? I thought it was because you guys liked me more!” DK raged.

“Uh, yeah. That’s why.” Minghao took his rightful seat on Jun’s lap.

To be completely honest, I should have lost that battle. I won out of luck. When the battle first started, I was confident that I would destroy him. As soon as he hit me with his super-sonic voice, I knew it would be difficult. I had forgotten how much he had progressed since his first day when Professor Suarez showed off his ear/glass-shattering screech. Ever since then, DK had been practicing like a crazy person. When I had free time, I would go and watch him scream his lungs out. He had so many new ways of using his power; I’m surprised he didn’t use them. I wonder if he was just going easy one me.

For a minute or two, the group stared at each other in an awkward silence. A few of us stared at the flipped over table with our food underneath it. Even Minghao, the sassy child, looked agitated by the fact that none of us had lunch.

“IDEA! Let’s eat a salad.” From the palms of my hand, a head of lettuce began to grow. All around, the group cheered at the sight of food. The applause and happiness ended when a pair of eyes blinked from the head of the lettuce.

“Wonwoo, why is it that every time you are near vegetables, you decide it would taste better with a face?” S.coups spoke up, scaring the head of lettuce onto the flipped over table. It rolled into the middle of the cafeteria and made baby sounds.

“KILL IT WITH FIRE!” Seungkwan screamed, picked up Vernon and held him like a gun. Suddenly, flames shot out of Vernon’s mouth and devoured the poor baby lettuce head. _It was so young. Why did it have to go?_

“I have a better idea.” S.coups stood up and brushed his clothes off, despite there being nothing dirty on him. “HOSHI! COME HERE!” He hollered across the cafeteria and a dizzy Hoshi poked his head out of the rubble of the broken wall he ran into. Before I could blink, he was right in front of me, back to his normal jittery self. “How fast can you run?” S.coups held out a wad of cash and smiled.

 A sudden gust of wind hit me in the face and I fell back in my chair. When I sat back up, the table was set up with a large assortment of fast foods. I can’t even describe some of the items on the table, too greasy to even categorize. Let’s just say: we ate like the kings we are.

“Okay, before lunch ends. Let’s see who fought who. Only talk if you fought someone at this table.” S.coups directed us.

“I fought Wonwoo and lost.” DK said.

“I fought Vernon and won.” Jeonghan said proudly and Vernon ducked underneath the table. _Jeonghan can fight?_

“I fought Joshua and won.” Mingyu said. _I can’t imagine Joshua being a fighter. How did Mingyu beat someone who just talks? Did he just punch him?_

“Odds are you probably won’t fight anyone from the group anymore. So, good luck to the ones who are still in the running!” S.coups said as the intercom interrupted.

“4 tHo5e oF U wh0 WoN yOur f1Rs7 ma7cH: C0nGRa7ul@1on5. U w1lL r3cE1ve th. In4ma71on oN yoUr n3X7 bAt7l3 bY tOn1gHt @ yUr d0rM Roo6.” The rusted machinery spit out. It’s quite funny actually, the entire school is at its peak performance yet the intercom sounds like it was installed four-hundred years ago.

“Did anybody catch that?”

““For those of you who won your first match: congratulations. You will receive the information on your next battle by tonight at your dorm room.” It wasn’t that hard to hear, Wonwoo.” S.coups said and the group parted ways.

. . .

“I’m so tired.” I took my shirt off and fell back onto my bed. Without looking, I heard Vernon scrabbling through what sounded like a garbage bag. After a long day, this isn’t the sound I wanted to hear before bed time. “Vernon, child. It’s be a long day, may I get some sleep?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry. I was trying to open your package.” He tried opening the bag. I sat up in my bed and looked over to his direction. _Did he just admit to trying to open my package?_

“Vernon, why are you opening up MY package? Do you not have any of your own?” I didn’t bother getting up.

“It was on your bed and I was bored.” He threw the gray package at my face. “It won’t let me open it anyways.”

The gray package was quite large but it felt incredibly hollowed. The top of the package read “tear here” and I ripped off the corner with ease. _Does Vernon not know how to read?_ Inside, a small envelope lay at rest. The seal on the envelope was red and had an official stamp of the Institute of the Talented. I opened the envelope and took out the letter enclosed within.

 

_Dear Jeon Wonwoo,_

_You have won your first match against Dokyeom and now you get to fight Hoshi from the sophomore class. Unlike Dokyeom, who had a wicked screech, Hoshi has the ability to run at impossible speeds. However, there is a way to stop him. Since his ability has affects his human body, he will get hungry and tired at fast paces. To beat Hoshi, you must either wait till he passes out from starvation or exhaustion. This may seem easy but keep in mind he has been attending this institute a year longer than you and Professor Alexander has taught him how to keep his restrictions at bay._

_The fight will take place tomorrow at lunch in the North Gym. Get a lot of rest and work on your game plan!_

_-Principal Nguyen_

_P.S. Every student received a letter with information on their opponent’s powers and weaknesses. You’re not special_

 

“Does it say anything special?” An excited Vernon jumped onto my bed and started reading the letter. “That’s stupid. You spent a good minute staring at a blank piece of paper. You really must be tired.” Vernon put the ‘blank’ letter back into my hands and went back into his bed.

I picked up the gray packaging the letter came in and saw it was full of luxuries. A new pair of pajamas rested at the top. It was quite adorable, actually. The stamp on the seal of the envelope was imprinted onto the pajama top. Underneath the pajamas, a ring sat at the bottom of the packaging. The gem on the ring was a Green Kunzite, similar to a soft green Diamond. If I stared at it hard enough, I could make out tiny images of nature: flowers blooming, trees growing from seeds, birds hatching from eggs, rain falling into a swamp. I looked back at the letter and remembered it was from Principal Nguyen. Instead of putting the ring on, I set it back into the bag, along with the pajamas, and went to sleep.

Knowing I was gifted items from the Principal made me feel special, despite her specifically telling me not to feel special. Feeling special made me feel more like a target. My father had warned me about the Institute being evil. What if Principal Nguyen is out to get me and my father is right? I’m not putting this ring on until I feel better about this situation.

 

 


	19. Chapter 19

“WELCOME TO OUR SCHOOL’S FIRST TOURNAMENT OF THE FITTEST!!!”

The crowd went wild as the remaining contestants waited in the side classroom of the gym. Surprisingly, the atmosphere felt amazing but it also felt terrifying. Knowing that our matches would be broadcasted onto the nearby students made my heart jump. I don’t know half of these students and yet they cheer on our battle.

“Alright, everybody quiet down.” Aubrey twirled around the room as jittery students focused their attention onto her. “First up we have.. Angel versus Woozi. Good luck to the both of you!” Aubrey helped them set up by the door as they were introduced to the audience. As she opened the door, a loud echo of the audience cheering filled the room. For a minute, I thought it was DK seeking out his revenge.

The guy, who I assume is Angel, and Woozi both made their way out onto the gym floor and the door closed. For a second, the audience went completely silent. It made me wonder if I was just nervous and tuned them out or if they actually stopped cheering. After that second of confusing silence, the audience roared with applause and screamed Angel’s name. They both walked back in, Woozi looked saddened but he wasn’t throwing a fit so that’s reassuring. Angel looked proud, as a victor should look. _Was there match only a second long?_

“Who do we have next?” Aubrey flipped through a notepad until she found the correct page. “This is so stressful—Wonwoo versus Hoshi! Yes, you’re up!”

The crowd went wild as we entered the gym. All around, students called out Hoshi’s name like he was a celebrity. A lot of the students weren’t sure who I was but cheered me on anyways. In the back of the gym, a group of students held up a sign that read ‘HOW FAST CAN HE DO IT?’ whatever that meant.

I stopped at my place as Hoshi continued walking to the opposite side of the gym. When he was in place, Professor Suarez read us the rules and said we could begin. I looked towards Hoshi’s general vicinity to see him missing. The audience screamed and hollered as Hoshi ran past me and slammed his fists directly into my face. Of course there was no pain, but my vision went blurry and I fell onto my butt. Quickly, I regained my ability to see and stood up, looking for the speedster.

“Over here.” Hoshi’s voice came from behind me and I turned around to watch him punch me in the stomach. As I reached for my stomach, he ran around behind me and struck me in the back. I fell onto the ground and panted heavily.

“DID HE DO IT? DID HE BEAT HIS RECORD?” The announcer helped cheer on the audience.

 “Since you’re a part of squad, I’ll go easy on you. Alright?” Hoshi munched on a candy bar. _I guess waiting for him to starve wasn’t going to work._

“Don’t underestimate me.” I clenched my stomach and stood up with a smirk on my face. Hoshi didn’t like that and kicked my chin, sending me flying backwards.

“Then get up and fight me.” Hoshi’s speed surpassed my vision as a vortex wrapped around me. The oxygen all around became increasingly low and I started floating upwards. It reminded me of when the rock ghost picked me up in his gravity thingy, only I wasn’t going to pass out from nothing this time. This time, it would be from lack of oxygen.

Like Hoshi suggested, I decided to fight back.

Instead of a rain forest like the one I fought DK in; I thought it would be more efficient to summon a labyrinth of cacti. As soon as the first cactus sprouted on the bottom of the vortex that surrounded me, the vortex depleted and sent Hoshi flying onto the opposite side of the gym. As he landed, a few cacti flew up into the air. The impact of his land must’ve caused a crater to form into the ground. The audience silenced as they waited for a sign of Hoshi being awake or not. While waiting for the audience to determine if I won or not, I reclaimed my balance and stretched my neck.

When Principal Nguyen sent the letters that told us about our opponent’s restrictions and capabilities, I had underestimated his speed by a bit. I knew he was fast, considering he had bought lunch, brought the lunch back to the table and then set the table, all in under two seconds. For some reason, I thought a fight would be different, like maybe he would slow down enough for me to maybe hit him. Boy was I wrong. So far, he has hit me so many times.

Luckily, the labyrinth of cacti should stop his super speed. Sadly, it won’t stop him from hitting me at extreme speeds, or evading my moves.

“Nice one, Wonwoo. I’ll admit: It was a smart move to make the field into a maze of cactuses.” Hoshi spoke from his side of the gym and the crowd went wild. “Cactuses won’t stop me though!”

Suddenly, a bright haired Hoshi ran up the bleachers, onto the walls and stood upside down on the ceiling. His feet vibrated and I assume that’s how he stayed suspended from the ceiling. As he vibrated, needles from his impact with the cacti shook off.

“IT’S CACTI NOT CACTUSES!” I jumped out of the way as he struck down from the ceiling like a lightning bolt. The impact of his high speed landing formed a crater in the ground accompanied by a cloud of dust. The area in which I had jumped to was the borderline of the crater. Any closer and I would have ended up like one of the broken cacti.

“Cactuses, cacti, sharp green things that grow out of the ground. I see no difference.” Hoshi dusted his shoulders off.

“How about I show you the difference?” I thought about sharp green things that grow out of the ground and rose vines entangled Hoshi’s feet. His running shoes were caught on the thorns of the vines making him unable to move. “Those are sharp green things.”

“Clever,” He laughed as his feet began vibrating. Instead of the thorns detaching like the needles did, his feet walked through them as if he were a ghost. “But not clever enough.” He ran at me and punched me into a cactus.

I felt no pain, but I knew my body wasn’t going to be able to take any more abuse. Before I could try freeing myself from the cactus’s needles, Hoshi ran up to me and speed punched my stomach. It’s a good thing we haven’t eaten lunch yet or he would have a face full of puke. The situation I was in reminded me of when Aubrey placed us into the spider’s web and I thought the best way to escape was a thorn for a fingernail. Mingyu, however, gave me the best idea for the situation. _Sorry, Hoshi. This is going to damage you more than it will damage me._

“What the?” Hoshi was astounded by the sight of his fist stuck on my spiny body.

“Give me a hug, buddy.” The cactus behind me freed me from its tight grip allowing me to give Hoshi a bear hug. Just before I could do any real damage, he vibrated through me. Don’t get me wrong, I still got him. His entire front of his body was covered in puncture wounds, just smaller than bullet holes.

Hoshi quickly devoured an energy bar, dropped the wrapper and began moving his arms in a circular motion. Strong wings began blowing in my direction, dragging me backwards. I couldn’t implant my thorns into the ground and the wind lifted me off me feet and slammed me into the gym wall. This time, my thorns were stuck in something I couldn’t control.

“Finish him! Finish him! Finish him!” the crowd cheered as Hoshi walked slowly towards my direction. My eyes starting feeling heavy and I felt my consciousness fading.

“Help.. me..” I managed to whisper before my throat lost all hydration. With what little strength I had left, I managed to keep my eyes from closing any further. My skin felt withered and my throat was on fire.

Cacti, all around the gym, grew eyes that opened creepily. A few with arms moved them as if they hadn’t been oiled in a few years. Some opened their mouths and released roars while others began hopping out of the ground. One very helpful cactus hopped over to me and poured some liquid down my throat with its broken arm. As disgusting as it sounds, it actually tasted amazing and I felt refreshed.. slightly. I finally had enough energy to remove the spikes that lay rest on my body, freeing me from the gym wall.

Hoshi was having a rather difficult time fending off the cacti army. At first, any that approached would get karate chopped into slices of cactus. As more and more hoarded around him, his karate chopping would only do so much and he had to vibrate out of the mob. As fast as he was, he only had so much energy. Even Hoshi has his limits. Just as he escaped from the horde of cacti, he crouched on the floor and smirked at me with one eye opened.

“Good match, Wonwoo.” Hoshi fell to the ground and a siren wailed. The audience was silent as their idol lay motionless on the ground.

I commanded my cacti army to stay back, making sure they wouldn’t kill him.

Suddenly, claps and cheers roared from the audience and I blinked back to our starting positions. Hoshi started walking towards me with a fake smile on his face. The crowd went wild as they screamed my name. The feeling of the audience cheering me on felt amazing. As Hoshi approached me, he extended his hand. I took it and we walked back to the room holding the contestants.

“Why can’t these matches be longer?” Aubrey panicked as she flipped through her unorganized sketch pad. “Seungkwan you’re up against...” Her voice was cut off by Hoshi.

“I’m not mad, in case you were wondering.” Hoshi’s smile looked more genuine than it did when he was walking towards me once he lost. “That was fun. I hope we can spar some other time, even when there isn’t a competition.” Hoshi went to talk to Megan, who looked incredibly peeved off.

“Jeon Wonwoo, may I speak with you?” Principal Nguyen popped out of nowhere. I walked over to her and she looked at my hands. “Where is the ring I gave you?”

“Oh, that pretty green ring? Vernon saw it and he just had to have it so I let him keep it. Hope you don’t mind.” I lied. Her eyes widened and sweat ran down her face.

“It’s fine.” She put on a fake smile. “Ah, looks like your next opponent just finished his match.” She gestured to Seungkwan who just walked in from a match. He wiped off a bead of sweat and smiled happily.


	20. Chapter 20

Back at the dorm, Vernon went on and on about how cool it was to watch me fight, despite him going on an adventure with me not too long ago. I swear, he is such a little kid. Just like the previous night, a gray package was sitting on my bed. Thankfully, Vernon wasn’t attempting to open it. I tore the horrific thing open and took out the letter.

 

_Dear Jeon Wonwoo,_

_You have won your second match against Hoshi and now you get to fight Seungkwan from the freshman class. Unlike Hoshi, who was incredibly fast, Seungkwan has the ability to become possessed at any given time. However, there is a way to stop him. Since his ability takes control over his body, whatever is possessing him will use his body however they see fit. To beat Seungkwan, you had better hope that luck is on your side and something that doesn’t want to fight takes control of him. This may seem like an unfair advantage but don’t fret just yet, I’m not finished. Unlike the letter after your first fight, you get a description of two of their powers. In this case: things that can possibly possess the crazy kid._

_Meet Baby Tantrum! Don’t let the name fool you, when this demon takes control of Seungkwan, nobody wins. The more damage his body takes, the stronger it becomes. You can keep an eye on how powerful it gets by the color of its skin. Typically, Baby Tantrum takes on the color of red. The darker the red becomes the higher chance of your death!_

_Meet Grim Reaper! Well, hopefully you DON’T meet Grim Reaper. It wouldn’t be much of a fight and frankly, Professor Suarez hasn’t figured out how to bring the dead back to life in his visions. If you meet Grim Reaper, call out to Professor Suarez and forfeit. Unless you enjoy having your soul reaped, then by all means: fighting!_

_The fight will take place tomorrow at lunch in the North Gym. Get a lot of rest and work on your game plan!_

_-Principal Nguyen_

_P.S. Every student received a letter with information on their opponent’s powers and weaknesses. You’re not special_

 

“Still reading those blank pieces of paper, I see.” Vernon threw a ball into the air and played ‘catch’ with himself.

“Are you stupid? It’s enchanted so that only I can read it. It’s telling me about Seungkwan’s power, though it didn’t really mention how to beat it. Just to forfeit if things go bad.” I folded the letter up and put it back into the envelope. At the bottom of the package, another ring waited for a finger to strangle. It was the exact same ring as before, except it was a duplicate.

I set both rings under my bed, in fear of them being hexed. To keep them from just resting on the floor, I placed them into a pot of dirt and entangled them in vines. I turned the lights off and closed my eyes.

“ _Wonwoo, I’m coming for you._ ”

My eyes opened wide as I looked around my dark room. Vernon lay sleeping on his bed, nothing abnormal about that. _I know I’m dreaming right now. Why can’t I wake up?_ I stood up and poked my head outside my dorm room. The lights in the hallway were flickering and I just knew this was going to end terribly. This entire scenery reminded me of a scary videogame that you had to walk through, despite you knowing the creepy jump scare was going to appear at the end.

“ _This isn’t a dream, Wonwoo._ ”

I knew this voice, this voice was extremely familiar.

“ _It’s your father, Wonwoo._ ”

“Would you let me add some anticipation into my own life? Please? Okay, thanks.” I thought about who it could be. “Dang it, you ruined the jump scare!” I yelled at my father.

Slowly, I made my way down the creepy corridor. At the end of the hall, a large collection of rock golems waited patiently to be played with. _Was this a hint to his army?_ I picked one of them up and it squirmed in my hands. It tried breaking my finger but it didn’t have enough power to do so. Looking at the sight of something so small, but macho, made me laugh.

The mini rock golem began growing in my hand and I dropped it on the floor. The hard impact didn’t stop it from growing. I took a few steps back as its full-sized body filled the large corridor. It let out a roar that sounded like metal scraping against a chalkboard.

Before it could grab me, I ran down the corridor towards my room. As I approached the door, I took out my large collection of keys and frantically flipped through them. Every now and then I would glance over my shoulder and see the massive thing push its way forward. Just before it reached me, I managed to find the right key and let myself in.

“Vernon, we have company!” I slammed my back against the door in attempt to keep the beast at bay. Vernon stood in the middle of the room with an obsidian helmet on his head. His face had a wide smile but his eyes looked angry. His cheeks puffed as he sprayed liquid fire directly into my eyes. I saw a bright red coloring but as the seconds went on, the color got darker and darker until it was complete darkness.

“Wake up, champ!” Vernon’s hands found my chest and my eyes shot open. I looked over to the marvelous, non-possessed Vernon and smacked my lips up against his. His hands pushed me away and I realized what I had just done. “NO! NO! NO! NO!...... NO!”

“I’m sorry. I had a nightmare and the sight of seeing you healthy excited me.” I covered my blushing face.

“In that case, you are forgiven.”

“Really?”

“NO!”

. . .

“WELCOME TO DAY TWO, OR THREE, I FORGET, OF OUR FIRST EVER SCHOOL TOURNAMENT!!!”

The crowd’s cheers were all too familiar. Again, they placed us in our small waiting room. Though, there weren’t as many people as there was yesterday. I’d say two-thirds were missing. Is it possible for people to tie and end up both losing?

“Alright, I have my information organized today!” Aubrey twirled around the room and hummed a nice tune. “First up: Seungkwan versus Wonwoo. I wish I could watch.” She seemed to sob as she waited with us by the door.

The announcer announced our names and we took our positions across from each other. Professor Suarez read the rules and the match begun. Seungkwan’s eyes went completely black and his body turned purple and he grew scales.

_HissssSSSSS!!!~~~_

The letter from the Principal didn’t mention anything about a snake possessing Seungkwan. I did not have a game plan. Instead of allowing the thing to make the first move, I encased it with roots and tried pulling it into the ground. My powers are stronger than I make them out to be. The purple demon-snake was completely swallowed by the earth. All that remained was root flooring.

The ground rumbled all around, causing me to lose my balance and fall onto my butt. Underneath where I sat, a widened mouth shot out from the ground and bit me at the torso. I struggled as purple liquid dripped down the snake’s fangs. Its eyes were void-black and they looked right through me. Since pain couldn’t be felt in Professor Suarez’s visions, I had to assume I was poisoned and bleeding out. Thing are not looking good.

Without much thought, I conjured up the only thing I knew snakes were afraid of: a Mongoose. Its size was nothing compared to the snakes’ but it startled it just enough to release me from its death grip. My pants seemed to be dissolving from the snake’s stomach acid and I was beginning to see a bit too much skin. Without thinking, a banana leaf skirt wrapped around my waist, covering just enough skin to not be taunted all throughout my university life.

“S-s-such a s-s-small Mongoos-s-se.” The snake slithered over to the Mongoose and devoured it whole. “You can’t defeat me, child of the earth.” It tongue licked the air as it tried sensing me. _How could I be so stupid? This snake is blind._

The long creature slithered around the gym, ignoring the audience that was no longer cheering. In fact, as the snake got closer, Professor Suarez extended the gym, causing the snake to feel like it was a wide gym. As the snake came towards my direction, the gym reclaimed its normal shape.

Its tongue sensed me for some reason and a purple liquid shot at my direction. The gym floor dissolved, leaving a grimy earth underneath it. There was no way I could allow myself to be hit with such a lethal poison. Every few shots, I would have to conjure up a leaf wall to prevent any real damage. From all of the melted holes on the ground and the leaf walls, it prevented the snake from finding me with ease. For a few minutes, I managed to hide from the beast as it slithered around to find me. Eventually, it found my general vicinity.

When it was a few feet away from my face, I waited for the right time to strike. As its tongue licked the air, a tree shot up, piercing the snake’s tongue.

“You evil _hissss_!” The snake began morphing back into Seungkwan. His tongue wasn’t pierced, luckily for him. However, the slithering movement Seungkwan endured came flooding back to him and he fell to the floor. I watched as he glanced around in confusion before passing out. As normal, I blinked and we both stood facing each other in our positions.

The crowd went wild as I took my third victory, only one more to go. Seungkwan congratulated me but had no memory of becoming a snake. Maybe that was one of his restrictions?

“Jeon Wonwoo, where is the ring?” Principal Nguyen stood in the waiting room with her arms crossed.

“Oh, yeah about that. See, I was going to put it on but I forgot about it last minute. I will wear it tomorrow, I promise!” I lied to her again. Considering the fact that she was so persistent about me wearing the ring, it really made me feel suspicious.

. . .

Back at the dorm, I decided I wouldn’t open the gray package until the next morning. I thought it would make for a better surprise. Besides, I didn’t want a third ring under my bed. Before I went to sleep, I took out the pot containing the rings. The vines I had wrapped around the rings had melted, leaving a purple substance at the bottom of the pot.

_If she thinks I am going to wear this, she has another thing coming._


	21. Chapter 21

“Congratulations! You graduated high school! How do you feel, son?” My mother held a giant pink frosted cake that spelled out ‘Happy Birthday’ across the top. The room was decorated with party accessories that made our apartment seem festive. My father stumbled into the room, landing on his face.

“Son! You’re home!” He stood up and fixed his glasses. “I told the cake-lady to write out ‘Congratulations’ on top of the cake! Not ‘Happy Birthday’!” My father looked around the kitchen in a panic.

“Honey, it’s alright!” My mother let out a giggle and accidently dropped the massive cake onto the floor. “Oh, dear.”

Quickly, I stuck my finger into the frosting and licked the pink sugar. My mother and father stared at me like I was crazy, but then let out a giggle and we ate floor cake.

“I hope you’re ready for orientation tomorrow.” My father’s face was bright and cheery.

“Totally excited! I can’t wait to show off my magic trick.” I stood up and pulled a bouquet of roses out of the sleeves of my shirt. The roses gave off a soft garden smell, adding a nice aroma to the room. I set the bouquet next to my mother and she clapped.

“Well, you two should go to bed now. You both have a big day ahead of you tomorrow.” My mother stood up and began sweeping up the cake mess. I gave her a goodnight, went into my room and stared at the ceiling from my bed.

I wonder what this school will be like. Will I meet the love of my life? OOOH! If I do, I hope he has the power to spit fire. It’d be really attractive to see a man have an ability that can stop my own. Not that I like to get beaten up or anything; I just think it would be cool to burn down a forest. . . . What am I talking about?

Anyways, considering my father is the Principal at the Institute of the Talented, I wonder if that will help me become one of the popular kids. It’s nice that he has a reasonable job that helps my mother to not have to work so hard. He’s a great father.

“ _Yes, I am. I can be. If you just give me the chance. We can start over. We can have the life you see all around you._ ”

Memories of my real life started flooding back: all of my friends sitting at the table for lunch, every teacher helping me to become the student I am today, my twisted father kidnapping Mingyu and Melissa. Rage built up in my stomach and I felt sick listening to the voice in my head. To stop the voices from continuing, I dug my head deep within the pillows.

“ _Don’t be like that. I just want the best for you._ ”

“FINE, FATHER. THEN TELL ME: WHY IS THIS SCHOOL SO EVIL?” I took my head out of the pillow and sat up in my dorm room. Vernon was half-way up the wall and breathing like he saw a ghost. A pair of underpants rested on the top of his head as he stared at me with fear in his eyes. I looked around the room and realized that it was just a bad dream. “I’m sorry. I had a nightmare.” I got out of bed and made sure Vernon wasn’t permanently traumatized.

“Why were you crying in your sleep?” Vernon’s hands found my shoulder as I pulled the blankets to cover him.

“Cry? In my sleep? What are you talking about?”

“I heard a muffled crying sound and woke up. At first, I wasn’t sure if it was you crying or if it was just DK staying up late and watching a drama. Soon enough, your crying got louder and I tried checking up on you but you threw me against the wall and then screamed about the school being evil or something of the sort.” Vernon got comfortable in his bed as I sat next to him. I apologized to him and waited for him to fall asleep before I went back to my bed and waited for morning to rise.

. . .

 

_Dear Jeon Wonwoo,_

_You have won your third match against Seungkwan and now you get to fight Minghao from the sophomore class. Unlike Seungkwan, who took on the abilities/form of demons, Minghao has the ability to instantly solidify anything he wishes. However, there is a way to stop him. Since he is a sassy child, he typically only solidifies his own skin, making it impenetrable. To beat Minghao, you had better hope that he doesn’t sit there like a statue and tire you out. This may seem like an unfair advantage but don’t fret just yet, I’m not finished. Unlike the letter after your first and second fight, you get a description of how he might try and fight you._

_Ever since freshman year, Minghao has had a difficult time morphing objects into impenetrable forms. Instead, he just turns his skin into this unbreakable substance. Currently, the school is unaware of what makes him invulnerable to just about anything. However, when a part of his body is impenetrable, he will be unable to move._

_Professor Suarez has tried teaching him how to transfer his ability onto weapons but so far, he has made very little progress. Instead of practicing, he spends his time with his boyfriend, Jun, the leader of the martial arts unit. I don’t know what Jun has taught this sassy child, but if he has taught him anything, you had better be careful._

_The fight will take place tomorrow at lunch in the North Gym. Get a lot of rest and work on your game plan!_

_-Principal Nguyen_

_P.S. Every student received a letter with information on their opponent’s powers and weaknesses. You’re not special_

 

. . .

“WELCOME TO THE—”

“WE GET IT ALREADY! LET’S SEE THE FIGHT!”  The audience interrupted the announcer.

The waiting room in which they placed the contestants in was much smaller today. Not the room, the amount of people that were in it. By the looks of it, maybe seven people would be on this special unit. I scanned the room for familiar faces, Mingyu, that one Angel guy, and Minghao were the only people who I spotted immediately.

“Jeon Wonwoo, come over here.” Principal Nguyen called me out of the waiting room. “Wear this ring or forfeit the match.” She extended her hand to reveal that dreadful ring.

“What is so special about this ring?” I asked in hopes she would tell me.

“It’ll protect you.” She shoved the ring onto my finger. It felt like a normal ring, but I knew I had to take it off before my finger ended up like the vine that held the ring. _How will it protect me if it melts my finger off?_

I flashed a fake smile and walked back into the waiting room, slamming the door in her face. Minghao gestured me over to him and Aubrey. Minghao had that look of a model that stepped right out of the shower and had perfect hair. Just by looking at him, you wouldn’t see his sassy side. Of the time I have attended this weird Institute, Minghao is by far the sassiest, if you don’t include Seungkwan or Yoolhee into the running.

“Alright, you two. You know the drill: good luck, have fun, break a leg.” She said as if we were putting on a show. We stepped out into the gym when the announcer told us to wait. The audience looked just about as confused as we did.

“Since this is the final round, we will be adding new rules. If you want to be in the ‘Special Unit’, you need to prove yourself worthy. For this match, you will switch powers with your opponent. Good luck adapting.” Professor Suarez smirked as we made our way to our positions.

Switching powers would be a huge disadvantage for me. When I first discovered I had powers, I couldn’t control them at the slightest. Now I have to learn how to use someone else’s power or lose the match. What makes things worse is that Minghao’s power isn’t really meant for ‘fighting’ whereas it should be for ‘defending’. From the letter we received, it did mention something about Minghao being able to transfer his indestructible coat onto something else. That’s my best option.

 The match begun and the audience went dead silent. Minghao and I made eye contact as we both stood in place. Neither one of us knew how to approach the situation. From the corner of my eye, I managed to see Minghao’s fingers wiggling around.

“So, Wonwoo. Figure out how to use my power yet?” Minghao yelled from across the gym.

“I have, actually.” I bluffed.

“Oh, so you shouldn’t have a problem with this then.” Minghao’s hand rose and I took a step back. My back felt small pressure points all around. Somehow, he managed to grow a Saguaro behind me, without me noticing. “I knew you haven’t figured it out yet.”

 I forced myself to move forward and out of the saguaro’s grip. Suddenly, my peripherals spotted two shadows coming in at a high speed on both sides of my body. Instinctively, my body froze as the Saguaro’s arms slammed against me, hugging my tightly. My eyes could move just fine, but the rest of my body was frozen solid. I glanced down to see my skin had changed into a darker pigment of itself.

“Oh, you figured out how to use it? Well then, let’s see how long you can keep it up. As soon as you let go, you can expect a grand-ole hug from your Saguaro buddy.” Minghao laughed and sat down on a stump he managed to grow.

For the next hour, my body slowly started to vibrate as the protection started to wear off. It wasn’t that it had a time limit; my body was genuinely becoming exhausted.

“Let’s make this a fair fight, shall we?” I panted as Minghao looked up from the lovely rabbits keeping him company.

“I really want to be a part of this ‘Special Unit’. I’m hoping it’ll give me the chance to be working alongside with Jun, my boyfriend. So, “No” to your request of a fair fight.” Minghao smiled and continued playing with the rabbits.

Soon, this skin would become vulnerable and the cactus would crush me. Is this how Minghao would lose if we actually fought? All I would have to do is trap him via saguaro cactus?

_Didn’t the letter mention something about the possibility of Minghao spending a lot of time with Jun? Does that mean Minghao knows a form of martial arts? If this doesn’t work, I will lose the battle right here._

I allowed my protection to depart as I used the ground as a spring, jumped through the arms of the Saguaro and fell onto my face. The cactus slowly began moving towards my direction. I looked over to Minghao, who was too busy feeding the rabbits some carrots he grew from a nearby garden he tended to earlier.

_This is my chance._

I ran up to the distracted boy and kicked him across the face. Before he could react, he flew back a couple of feet. His hand met his face as he wiped off a line of blood dripping from his lip.

“Don’t underestimate me.” I wiped a bead of sweat off my forehead.

“Did you just use the power my BOYFRIEND taught me?” Minghao’s face went from adorable to horrifying in two point five seconds. All around, rabbits repopulated, forming a fluffy army of carrot wielding maniacs. “SEIZE HIM! KEEP HIM AWAKE! I want to torture him.”

The rabbits hopped onto on another, forming a tsunami of rabbits. They left their carrots on the floor and I picked one up for defense. I held the carrot in front of me and it suddenly became increasingly heavy. The color of the carrot changed to an almost bronze color.

_Did I just do what Minghao couldn’t?_

I held the carrot like a long sword as the massive wave of rabbits swirled around me.


	22. Chapter 22

I’ve been in many fights before. Most of the time, they consist of terrifying creatures, weapons of mass destruction and super villains. I’m exaggerating when I say ‘most of the time’; it’d be more accurate if I said ‘for the past few weeks’. Never, have I been in a fight where the villain was a friend and their weapon of choice was a rabbit army. Unless you count the soon-to-happen-fight against my father and the time I was almost eaten by a squirrel.

“Really, Minghao?” The wave of rabbits swirled around me, taking the shape of a whirlpool. “Is this really necessary?”

“WHAT WAS THAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF RABBITS EATING YOUR FACE OFF!!!” Minghao said sarcastically; he could obviously hear me.

_Mmmnmmmmnmn_

A sole rabbit jumped from the mass and met my carrot sword. Instead of a bloody mess, like I was expecting, rabbit hide fell to the floor. There are two possibilities as to why this happened.

  1. This carrot sword is enchanted with a spell that turns rabbits into hide without the mess.



**OR**

  1. These are undeveloped rabbits, falsely created by Minghao’s lack of education on anatomy.



As the rabbits swirled closer to me, I did what I thought would be best for my survival in the fake world created by Professor Suarez. Swiftly, I spun around with the carrot dagger sticking out in front of me. Dozen by dozen, rabbits were converted into hide and fell to the floor. Before I knew it, the floor was covered with a nice rabbit hide carpeting.

The world spun as I finished off the remaining rabbits. Everything became blurry as I tried reclaiming my balance. From the distance, three figures started walking in my direction. The three figures walked into each other and took the shape of Minghao. _Stupid dizziness._

“It’s bad enough that you steal my boyfriend’s power, but now you destroy my beautiful rabbit army?” Minghao’s face was a bright shade of red. By the looks of it, the source of his red face wasn’t because he found me extremely attractive.

“I suggest you take an anatomy class. How dare you use my power to summon balloon rabbits!” I threw the carrot dagger directly at his face.

_Oh, no! What if the dagger kills him? What have I done?_

The carrot crashed into his face and Minghao fell onto the ground, booty first. A knot welled up in my throat as I ran over to him.

“Minghao?” I shook him. “Are you okay? Please be okay!” I took a closer look at the shattered carrot on his face. Directly in the center of his forehead, an orange dot lay dormant. Suddenly, Minghao coughed up a piece of carrot and opened his eyes.

“That was totally uncalled for! A carrot to my face? Really, dude?” His fist met my face and I flew backwards.

“Thank goodness, you’re okay.” I stood up and brushed the tiny pieces of hair from the rabbit carpet off of my pants.

“Of course I’m okay. You can’t throw sharp objects. In fact, you can’t throw objects at all. Not with indestructible properties, that is. As soon as you let go, it loses its invulnerability.” Minghao laughed. “We’ve only just begun.” He snapped his fingers and something sprouted behind me.

I turned around and saw a stalk growing wider and taller. I took a step back and tripped onto the carpeting. At the top of the stalk, two disk-shaped leafs grew to the size of the cafeteria tables. At the ends of them, grass-like blades formed as teeth. The center of the plant turned a light pink shade and the gym was filled with a familiar scent.

The scent reminded me of when I slept over at Mingyu’s dorm. I was back in Mingyu’s bed, underneath his fresh blankets, embracing his scent. My hands brushed against the top of his perfect hair. Instead of the soft, lush feeling I was expecting, my hand began to sizzle and burn. My mentality came back to me as my hand was glued to the plants feelers.

“What?” I tired freeing my hand from it. “What is this?”

“A Venus-fly trap. I guess in this case it’s a Venus-man-eating trap.” Minghao’s voice was calm.

By the looks of it, Minghao was getting better at my power than I was. It’s hard to believe how quickly he managed what he has. I couldn’t even make a flower grow when I first started yet Minghao’s first plant was a giant Saguaro cactus!

I quickly glanced at the fly-trap and back onto the rabbit-hide carpeting. If I can reach the floor, I can probably make an armor to prevent further harm from this beast. Using my tiptoes, I kicked one of the pieces of hide off of the ground and caught it before it fell back down. The hide hardened and I used it to pry my hand off of the acidic plant. I stumbled back and tripped on something.

I tried moving but I was stuck on something. My pupils moved left and right and I saw what was restricting my movement: a thorn bush. Somehow, I had managed to stumble upon the weapon that led to Melissa’s mind control. I see why she chose Obsidian as her morph; the damage from these thorns is no joke. If you tried moving, the thorns would just tug on your skin instead of releasing you. It might as well have been the plant version of quicksand.

As much as I didn’t want to do this, I had no other choice. To stop myself from bleeding and taking any further damage from the thorn bush, I solidified my entire body.

“I can fight all year, Wonwoo.” Minghao stood over me with his arms crossed. “Besides, you can’t karate chop your way to freedom.” He took a sip of water, rejuvenating his shriveling skin. “Oh, yeah. The letter we received from the principal told me your restriction. I studied, can’t you tell?” Minghao walked away.

My body was unable to make movements.

Hours went by as I tried thinking of an escape plan. Nothing came to my mind. I felt useless. _Is this how Mingyu felt when my dad kidnapped him?_

“Attention. Attention.” Professor Suarez’s voice filled the gym. “To make things interesting, you will get your powers back.”

Slowly, the invulnerability on my skin began to wear off. Before the thorns could seep back into my body, I willed them to soften. The thorn bush dissolved into a pile of sticks. Sadly, my body had a bunch of holes, regardless of my perfect skin just moments ago.

“Fantastic, your power was much too complex.” Minghao’s arm solidified in a coating of invulnerability as he raced over to me.

Before he could get close, my body was engulfed in a massive plant that sprouted through the roof of the gym. Outside of the massive plant, sounds of Minghao swiping at the plant could be heard. From my perspective, all I could see was darkness. It was like I was standing in a void. I could move at will; I just couldn’t see anything but my own body.

“Wonwoo,” A voice called out from behind me. “Let’s go on our date now.”

I turned around to see a bright light in the distance. A hand reached out for me. _I know that voice…_

I took the hand and it pulled me through the light. I fell onto Mingyu’s person and rolled onto the picnic blanket.

“Hey, there.” He brushed off a blade of grass from my face.

“H-h-hi.” I stuttered. _How am I here?_

The sky was a light blue with a multitude of clouds in no particular pattern. The sun was directly above, about noon. Next to us, a tall oak tree provided a sheet of shade for us. To my right, a basket of food awaited.

“Don’t worry. You’re still awake in the fight. You haven’t lost yet.” Mingyu reached over me and pulled out a vegetable salad from the basket, setting it in between us.

“Are you real?” I poked his cheek.

He laughed and took a bite from the salad. “No, but I can be.” Mingyu fed me some salad like I was a child.

“What does that mean?” I sat up on the red and white checkered blanket.

“It means I am watching you in the waiting room right now. Well, the real me is.” His face told me he was just as confused as I was. “What I’m trying to say is: I’m a part of your plant.”

“HUH”

“Yeah, you’re encased in a giant cocoon right now. It’s healing you to full health and I’m the side effect. While you heal, you get a slice of heaven.” Mingyu smiled, making him look like a dork.

“Sounds… weird. But… alright. Let’s date.” I opened the basket, revealing a bunch of fruits, two coconut waters and a piece of leftover steak. I pulled the steak out of its container and looked at Mingyu. My eyebrow rose in confusion.

“Eh, I couldn’t just eat grass.” Mingyu blushed and took the steak out of my hand. The sight of Mingyu eating meat like it was the only piece in the world made me giggle. _Such a dork._

For a while, we both ate and talked about life. I told him about my time in high school and how I survived off of coffee. He told me about his life, as well. Apparently, he grew up in a rich family. His father runs the Korean Mafia and his mother owns her own fashion line.

“I don’t mean to cut our date short, but,” Mingyu’s expression saddened. “You have to rejoin the fight.”

“What do you mean?” I forgot I was in healing mode.

“Your opponent is breaking your cocoon, be prepared.” Mingyu slowly vanished as the environment faded into a solid black coloring.

From my side, a light shone, revealing Minghao’s arm slashing through. Rage built up inside of me as the sight of Minghao’s eyes replaced the light. _He wouldn’t like it if I took him away from a date with his boyfriend; why does he get to do it to me?_

The giant beanstalk of life began to shrivel. Minghao backed up and waited for me to step out of it. Instead of allowing the life force to deplete, I wrapped it around my body. Before I knew it, my body was covered in a spiky armor. I looked like a green knight with giant thorns for extra protection.

“If this is an armor competition: I have you beat.” Minghao rolled up his sleeves.

“Let’s see about that.” I drew my grass blade sword.

 Minghao charged at me at full speed. He used his foot as a spring and jumped high into the air. My sword rested in striking position. Minghao’s body turned bronze and he fell at a high speed onto me.

I opened my eyes to see a large cloud of dust surrounding us. Minghao was on top of me, still bronze. The bronze color faded and he stood up, revealing the damage. The sword I held out in front of me was now gouged through my body and into the ground. All of the spikes from my armor were inserted into my skin, almost as if they were impenetrable but still weaker than Minghao’s falling body.

“You can’t beat me, Wonwoo.” Minghao dusted off his shoulder.

My vision went blurry and I blacked out.


	23. Chapter 23

All around the gym, the audience went wild as Minghao jumped up and down like a victorious small child. His smile was bright and his eyes lit up like he was on a candy-high. Despite him beating me only moments ago, I can’t be mad at him. The point of this battle was to test our abilities of adaptability. I have to admit, I did better than I thought I would. Truth is, Minghao is just better at adapting than I am.

“That was fun,” Minghao’s hand extended out, reaching for a handshake. “Don’t be too mad at me.”

“I’m not upset at the slightest; you beat me fair and square.” I took his hand and we shook on good terms. The audience roared having witnessed such an amazing battle.

Minghao and I made our way back into the waiting room where we were greeted by an antsy Aubrey. Funny how she was well prepared today and only in a matter of seconds she falls apart. In the corner of the room, Mingyu was looking down at his phone in a concerned manner. Before I could walk over to him, Minghao said his goodbyes and wished me well.

“Up next we have… oh gosh, where did I put the list? Mingyu versus… uh.. How do you pronounce this? You! In the red shirt: is this you?” Aubrey panicked and randomly threw the poor guy into battle. Mingyu made his way to the door and stood next to the guy in the red shirt.

“Good luck—” I wished Mingyu as the door closed behind him and he made his way onto the battle field.

I took a seat in the corner over by where Mingyu was sitting earlier. The ring on my finger didn’t seem to have any affect during the battle between me and Minghao, but that could be because battles in Professor Suarez’s world are only a second long in this world. Perhaps it was why I lost? No, Minghao won fair and square. Maybe I can have Yoolhee analyze the rings contents later, if she is fine with it.

On the chair next to me, a phone vibrated and the screen lit up. Because of the curiosity concealed deep within me, I had no choice but to pick it up and see what goodies the device had in store for me. I knew I was short on time so I quickly picked up the phone and slid the home screen open.

 

“Don’t bring any guys home. I’m serious, Mingyu. This is your final chance.”

 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Mingyu snatched his phone back. “Why are you going through my phone?”

I looked up at him to see a new expression on his face. Normally, he’d never get upset. Even that time I didn’t want to show my love and affection for him in public, sure he was mad, but not this mad.

“It was left open and I was going to surprise you with a selfie.” I lied, hoping he’d believe it. He looked down at his phone and back at me, slowly changing his expression to a calmer state.

“I’m sorry. I’m just a little stressed is all. Here, take a cute one.” Mingyu handed me his phone and waited. _Did I just lie like a professional just now?_ I took his phone and clicked on the camera app. His camera was already set on the front camera and I saw myself looking down with a second chin. _Eww.._ Suddenly, Mingyu’s finger shot down and pressed the capture button, capturing the hideous portrait. “That’s adorable, thanks.” He took his phone back.

“So… how was your battle?” I tried steering the conversation further away from his phone. “Did you win?”

“Yeah.”

Awkward silence occurred between us for a while. The final battles were occurring while we blankly stared away from each other.

“How was your battle?” Mingyu broke the silence.

“I lost against Minghao. It was a LONG battle.” I was thankful we started talking again.

“What? How did you let that thug beat you?” Mingyu turned towards my direction.

I told him about how the conditions of our battle were changed. He told me he had a similar change, except it wasn’t for adaptability; it was for item usage, or something like that. I continued on bragging about how quickly I learned how to use Minghao’s ability and how Minghao did attacks I didn’t think were possible. Overall, Mingyu was happy with how it turned out, despite me not being able to be on the same unit as him.

“By any chance, did you watch the battle at all?” I asked, hoping he was the one inside of my plant heaven.

“No, I was here the entire time. Why?”

“Oh, no reason.”

“WHOO! I WON! IN YOUR FACE, KID-I-DON’T-EVEN-KNOW!” Angel partied all around the room.

“How about we go somewhere.. quieter?” Mingyu took my hand and pulled me out of the room. For a while, we just walked around without speaking. That’s when we bumped into Yoolhee.

“What are you guys doing outside of the gym? You’re supposed to be fighting or watching or whatever losers do.” She crossed her arms like an adult.

“Well what are you doing outside of the gym?” Mingyu shot back.

“Fair point. I guess I’ll be going now.” She started walking away.

“WAIT!” I called out to her, stopping her from going any further. “Can you analyze this ring the principal gave me?” I removed the ring off my finger and passed it over to Yoolhee.

“Looks like a pretty ring to me. Why do I have to analyze this?” She continued searching all over it.

“Must I repeat myself? The principal gave it to me for participating in the contest. I don’t see anybody else wearing a fancy ring.” I said and she agreed.

“Give me like an hour.” She left with the ring.

I know she said it would only take her an hour, and it did, but it felt more like three days. Time really slows down when you are in a hurry. It also slows down when you don’t have anything to talk about with the person you’re waiting with. I’d like to talk to Mingyu but what can I possibly say to him? Oh, hey, Mingyu. What’s up with your father not wanting you to bring home any more dudes? How many were there before me? I CAN’T DO THAT! That’s rude and I’d like to stay on good terms with him. Hopefully, it’ll never show up.

“It’s enchanted.” Yoolhee threw the ring at me and I caught it before it could smack me in the face. “Nothing bad though. Think of it like a ring of restriction.”

“It prevents me from using my power? Seems bad to me.” I turned the ring and stared at the stone embedded in it.

“More like: stop you from losing control.” Yoolhee placed her back up against the wall and stuck her hand out.

“You want me to pay you?”

“Just because we’re on the same team doesn’t mean I work for free.” She waited for payment.

Mingyu, like the gentleman he is, stood up and took out his wallet. I would have stopped him but let’s be real: I’m broke. Besides, didn’t I overhear something about Mingyu being extremely rich? Or was that just a dream? Sometimes I get reality mixed up.

Just as he took out some money, the lights began to flicker throughout the corridor. Not long after, there was a slight vibrating feeling underneath my feet. Cracks began forming along the walls, dropping pieces of plaster onto the marble flooring. Light bulbs exploded as the cracks split in between them. By this time, the ground was shaking like crazy. If I were a scientist, I’d place this as a 10 on the Richter scale. The lights shut off completely and it was silent for a second. Then, the emergency lights kicked on and a loud siren went off.

“BraC3 URs3lf 4 _w_ a7. Ev3rY _b_ 0dy _t_ Ha7 _is_ caPAb13 _o_ f MoV1ng, _p_ l3ase Pr3pa _r_ e 4 ba77le.” The principal spoke through the loud speaker. “Sp3 _ci_ a7 Un1t, to _the_ 0f2Ic3.”

“Well, that was a crazy—” The sensation of falling stopped Mingyu from finishing his sentence. The entire Institute sunk into the earth below it. Natural lighting from the ceilings was covered with fresh soil. In some places, the glass shattered, allowing dirt to slowly spill into the school.

The impact didn’t hurt much. At worst, it felt like falling out of bed. Anybody that was on the stairs at the time might have had it worse.

“Did the speaker say ‘everybody that is capable of moving’? or did I hear incorrectly?” Yoolhee got off of her but and rubbed her head.

“It’s probably people who stayed in the gym to watch the fights.” Mingyu sat on the floor, not wanting to get up. “They probably had rocks fall onto them.”

“That’s just about everybody but us.” Yoolhee stomped her foot onto the ground. “Well, you heard her. We all have different places to go. I’ll see you guys around. Promise me you’ll stay alive.”

“Promise.” Mingyu and I spoke in unison.

With that being said, Yoolhee went to find the intelligence unit, Mingyu went to the office for the Special Unit, and I had a choice to make. On the day the principal assigned us units, she assigned me the freedom to choose. I could join up with Yoolhee in intelligence, but then I wouldn’t feel like I’m helping. I wish I could join up with Mingyu in the special unit, but I didn’t win my battle and I doubt I could join that one. That leaves Medical and Martial. Medical would mean I help heal the injured, which could be a good thing due to the fact that plants can be used to heal the sick, or in this case injured. Martial would mean I fight off whatever my father has to offer and I have the chance to punch him in the face. I think I know what I’m going to do.


	24. Chapter 24

**VERNON'S POV**

“Wake up.”

My eyes slowly opened. My vision wasn’t stable and I could see was blurs. The room smelt dusty and felt extremely claustrophobic. As my vision cleared up, the room became familiar. The ceiling where the glass windows were was completely shattered, allowing dirt and rocks to fill the gym. All around, students were either trapped under something heavy, or passed out on top of something heavy. By the looks of it, not everybody was.. alive.

“What’s going on?” My vision focused on the speed-devil next to me.

“You missed the announcement; we’re at war and need to get in position.” Hoshi looked around the room with a saddened expression. Sometimes I forget that he’s an upperclassmen and he knew most of the students here. I know I’m just a freshman, but seeing people hurt isn’t really making me feel that good either. “Are you hurt?” Hoshi extended his hand and I took it.

“Not that I know of. Where do people from the Martial Arts unit meet up?” I looked at the cuts running down Hoshi’s other side. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I heal fast. It’s a bonus of having super speed. Let’s find Jun.” Hoshi grabbed my hand and we were suddenly in a random corridor. “If we’re at war, we need to make sure our restrictions are not going to be an issue. I need to run to the cafeteria and stock up on protein bars. You stay by this water fountain and fight. I’ll be right back.” He was off before I could ask him what he meant by fight.

Not too long after he was gone, I understood what he meant. From both ends of the corridor, two gorilla sized golems slowly walked toward my direction. By the looks of it, they had been attacked not too long ago. Odds are, whoever damaged them, didn’t make it out.

The golem’s features were more defined this time around. Back at the hell-hole, the golems looked like stacked rocks formed by babies. Now they look like an army of sculptors called an army of architects and made this. Instead of rock, they looked to be made up of some sort of metal. Luckily for me, I spit fire.

Before they could close in on me, I spit out a layer of lava onto the golem behind me. The lava didn’t melt it but it did prevent its movement, which was fine by me. I’d prefer it if I only fight one at a time. The lava lit up the corridor, allowing me to see how badly the school had been damaged. Cracks ran up and down the walls, the ground looked like a shattered plate, even the ceiling looked broken. Before I did anything else, I took a drink of water and planted my feet facing the incoming golem.

“Don’t think you are all bad just because my lava doesn’t burn you. I can do more than JUST spit fire.” I cracked my knuckles and blew onto my fist. My fist lit up like an iron brander. The sensation felt cool, which was a good thing because I don’t need to melt my hand off. As soon as my fist was completely heated up, I ran up to the golem and punched it directly in its stomach, leaving a wide hole in its place.

The golem didn’t move. I removed my fist and stepped back. By the looks of it, it seemed to have killed it. Boy was I wrong. As soon as my guard was down, it grabbed me with its giant hands and started walking down the corridor.

_Why am I not dead?  Shouldn’t this massive thing be crushing me by now? Where is Hoshi? He had better be alright._

“Let me go you stupid metal whatever!” I punched its hand while it slowly walked down the long corridor. “Fine, but I warned you.”

I closed my eyes and focused on the heat stored within my body. A long time ago, when I was born, my mother would tell me stories about who I was destined to be. She said I was to become a monster, a creature that would end the lives of many. She said that I was destined to become a dragon. I hate it when people call me a dragon, which is why when I introduce myself; I just say that I spit fire. I lie about that; I can do so much more.

The golem stopped moving as my wings slowly cut through its metal hands. Its hand fell onto the floor, freeing me from its grip. With its other hand, it picked up the fallen heap of metal and reconnected it. The only way I was going to destroy this thing was by melting it. I am going to need A LOT more heat. I flew back to the water fountain and restored some energy.

“Come and get me, ugly.” I inhaled a big breath of air and waited. Inside of me, the fire in my stomach was producing a deadly amount of smoke. As soon as I couldn’t hold onto it any more, I released the black smoke into the already dark corridor. I blinked and my eyes adjusted to see through smoke. _Thank you, Professor Suarez._

The golem looked around for a bit, giving me enough time to plan out my strategy. Talons grew where my fingernails should be. My wings grew an extra layer of sharp bones. A tail sprouted out from behind me, also growing a row of sharp bones. Destroying a lovely pair of shoes, talons grew from my toenails and through the front of my shoes.

I know what you’re thinking. WOW SO COOL HE’S A DRAGON! Stop thinking that. I’m not a complete dragon. My mother was only half dragon; making me like half-dragon? Is there a term for that? Anyways, don’t expect me to go full on dragon. If you want to know how I look, imagine a dragon… now imagine me… now cut off the fat body of the dragon, remove its skull, add horns, add red scales and that’s me.

My talons lit up and I flew at high speeds toward the golem, slashing it open impact. As I turned back to it, half of its body was on the floor while the other half was dissolving from exposure to high heat. To finish it up, I sprayed the remaining pieces with fire until the golem was heated and melting into the ground.

Before I could defend myself, the golem that was slowed by my lava punched me from behind, slamming me into the wall. The damage to the wall was more severe than it was to me. My rough skin took most of the damage. The golem’s hand broke on impact of punching my body, which was a good thing. With its other hand, the golem slammed me further into the wall, pushing me to the other side.

The room looked awfully familiar; I think it was the outside of the cafeteria. It was the biggest place in the entire school, right after the auditorium. Students that were able to fight were fighting all sorts of weird things. In one corner, this guy was fighting what looked to be a diamond. To my right, a girl was healing a badly damaged student. Does that mean the medical unit is also on the battlefield?

“Behind you!” A voice warned.

I spun around to be greeted by two more golems. I took a step back as they crawled through the broken wall. Surrounding students stopped fighting their monsters to stare at mine. The monsters that were fighting the students stopped and ran the other direction. Was I fighting something strong? Before some of the monsters escaped, a few of the students blocked their path, stopping them from attacking injured students in other rooms.

“Anybody have the power to will water? I could use a refill.” I continued backing up while the golems slowly walked forward. A kid ran up to me and pulled water out of thin air, allowing me to rejuvenate my energy. “How is the war going?” I asked him.

“Not good, the medical unit, as well as the intelligence unit, was attacked and now everybody is just fighting to stay alive.” He slapped a stone rhinoceros with a water whip, breaking it into tiny pieces.

“Why are there so many monsters?” I spit fire at the golem’s feet, melting them into place.

“The controller is just recreating them as we break them.” He said as the rhinoceros fixed itself.

“I’ve got an idea, but I am going to need your help.” I whispered into the guy’s ear and his eyes widened by my plan.

“Wont that kill you?”

“I don’t know, we’ll see.” My mouth extended, releasing gun powder into the air, spreading throughout the massive room. “Refill please,” I asked as the boy poured water into my mouth. By this time, my throat was burning but I had to finish the job. “Get everybody out of here.”

I waited for everybody to leave the vicinity, leaving a horde of monsters for me to fend off. The golem’s feet cooled off and they broke free from there prison. I took a big breath of air and waited for the monsters to get really close. _Good bye, Wonwoo. Thank you for being my roommate._

Just before the golems could smack me, I released an eruption of flames into the air. The flames lit up the entire room, mixing with the gun powder that sat on the floor. The light intensified, evaporating nearby monsters. As the light faded, my consciousness faded. Before I could pass out, a fresh arm of golems crawled through the hole in the wall.

. . .

“Hello, there, Vernon.” A voice woke me up. My body was sore and I couldn’t move. “You caused a lot of trouble and I don’t appreciate that. However, I need your power so I forgive you.” A man walked in front of me. _Is this Wonwoo’s father?_

I looked passed him at the four chairs on a stage. The chairs looked like something you’d see at a dentist’s office. On the table next to each chair, three syringes laid on a napkin. Each syringe contained a light green liquid.

“Set him on the first chair, please.” He spoke and my body began making its way forward. I glanced down to see myself encaged by the golem’s grip.

As soon as we got to the chair, I was released and strapped down to the chair. Wonwoo’s father stood over me and picked up a syringe. My body looked half burned, half broken. I tried to move but I didn’t have the strength or the energy. Wonwoo’s father jabbed himself with a syringe and smiled at me.

“Huh?” I managed to say before he poked me with the second syringe. My vision turned a light green color and went back to normal. I didn’t feel any different, besides a small poke on my arm.

“Thank you for sharing your power with me, Vernon. Wonwoo would be most proud of you.” He walked behind my chair and did something with the third syringe. In front of me, a girl stood guard. At first, I thought I was saved, but then I realized it was Melissa. Her obsidian body told me she was still being controlled by the evil villain. “Time for you to go to sleep now.”

A sudden flash of green light took over my vision and exhaustion circulated throughout my body.

“H-H-Hel..”


End file.
